Photon Torpedoes?
I’ve been thinking about them lately, and I realized why I liked phasers more than photon torpedoes in my Star Trek fandom time. What exactly is a photon torpedoe?
It can’t be a laser, because that is what a phaser is, right? And it can’t be incoherent light of an ordinary sort, because that would be like throwing light bulbs at starships. Therefore I assume that the photon does not refer to visible light, but just to a form of EM radiation. With that assumption, I made some wilder assumptions to try and place photon torpedoes as real weapons.
Imagine that photon torpedoes work by bombarding whoever they are fired at with high levels of radiation (photons). For physics, we know that electrons absorb photons and move to a higher energy level. So I think it would be as feasible as any other definition to assume photon torpedoes are just agents for delivering concentrated doses of radiation. Because in this manner, it would be easy to visualize them vaporizing the hulls of starships by ionizing them (by stripping away all the electrons by exciting them with massive doses of radiation). Also, as far as anything is known about shields, we assume they are some form of radiation themselves, so it’s sensible to assume concentrated bursts of radiation might weaken and eventually breach them.
That’s my theory of photon torpedoes. I have yet to hear any other. Now someone needs to account for phasers. Who ever heard of a laser that knocks people out, or vaporizes whole objects even when it only contacts part of them? That is beyond even my BS (bad science 
skills.
Possibly relevant posts:
- What caused the Big Bang? (8/28/2002)
- Remember me? (7/18/2003)
- I can finally move on (or, a deviation result proved) (11/5/2008)