Using light as a barrier to block people without grilling them
We know that light exerts pressure upon matter.
I'm imagining a hallway where an intense light source on one end shines towards the other end. The goal is to have the beam of light exert so much pressure that a human being cannot enter (or reach the end of) the hallway. Of course, we only want to deter the human, not to burn them to a crisp.
Would this be realistic?
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Not with light pressure. You need 300 megawatts of radiation flux for each Newton of force on the object (equivalent to the force exerted by a ~100 gram weight).
However, you can use microwaves as non-lethal deterrent. A moderate microwave flux is extremely painful on skin, well before it becomes damaging. This is the basis of several experimental crowd control weapons in real life, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
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