Vampires can be seen by direct sight but not by reflection.
A pistol or rifle with dual sights. One sight which a conventional one where target is scoped by direct sight. The other sight has 2 mirrors so the light path takes a flattened "Z" trajectory. An image comparator is used to compare the images from the 2 sights. If images are different: VAMPIRE! and the image comparator activates the trigger. If images are the same, the trigger is inactive. Bullet used is made of silver, dipped in holy water, and engraved with biblical (in aramaic or hebrew) quotations. Now, one can venture into the castle with little fear to hit non-vampires. But sometimes all the inhabitants are all badasses, vampires or not; then the safety is put in the "ALL BADASS" mode and you may fire away.-- cecil0132, Aug 29 2012 Vampire Energy Infinite_20energy_20from_20Vampires [MechE, Aug 29 2012] Ultraviolet http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169501/1998 British TV drama about a police detective's encounter with vampires. [DrBob, Aug 30 2012] (?) Lansing, Michigan http://www.wayodd.c...f-halloween/v/8354/THE place to be when all Hell breaks loose ... [8th of 7, Aug 30 2012] Does this work if the vampire wears clothes, a mask and reflective sunglasses? I seem to remember that in all the movies I've seen, you can't see a vampire's clothes in a mirror either. Is that some kind of proximity effect? Are the "clothes" actually just an extension of the Vampire's body? Or do their clothes just become invisible after they wear them for too long without getting them cleaned?
These are serious issue that need to be understood before designing this weapon.-- scad mientist, Aug 29 2012 How about a little mirror and a sensor on a lightweight explosive bullet (with silver shrapnel in it)...if it hits something that the sensor couldn't pick up, it's a vampire and "bang!", if it hits something the sensor can pick up, it's a wall, floor, stuffed elephant or even a human, and it doesn't go bang.
Ok, they get a nasty bruise, but not much to complain about when considering the advantages of devampirisationalism..-- not_morrison_rm, Aug 29 2012 [+], but dual scopes wouldn't workyou'd get parallax errors. A more elegant solution would be a beam splitter. This would raise some interesting questions about how exactly a beam splitter would work with a vampire. Presumably, the image that passes through the splitter would be of the vampire, but at what intensity? Since no vampire-photons are reflected, would the image of the vampire be at 100% intensity surrounded by a background image at 50% intensity? But then the reflected light would show the background at 50% intensity along with a vampire shaped inverse shadow cutout at 100% intensity. I have to think this would be impossible due to conservation of energymore photons can't be received than are emitted. So, it's more likely that the passed image is simply at 50% intensity overall including the vampire, and the reflected image is at 50% intensity including the background image.
But how do the photons that are reflected know to change their arrangement to represent the image behind the vampire? There must be some sort of quantum entanglement effect going on, where the particular photon that was sent is determined by how it is observed. I think further study of this Quantum Vampirophotonic Duality Theory may be necessary.-- ytk, Aug 29 2012 [ytk] See the link for an extensive discussion of the energy creating properties of vampires.-- MechE, Aug 29 2012 Must investigate the link between vampires and ducks, as there's clearly some common physics in effect. Imagine if Darkwing Duck was a vampire, how stealthy he could be.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 29 2012 I didn't read the entire discussion on Vampire Energy, so maybe someone already discussed this, but when you see conservation of energy violated, it always means that there's a misunderstanding of what's actually happening.
What if vampires don't interact with light at all. People can see them, because "seeing" is the process of interpreting visual signals, not the act of absorbing photons. When you feel the sun on your hands, you aren't seeing, you are feeling. Somehow the vampires are inserting their image inside the observer's head somewhere between when light is received and when the image is interpreted by the brain. It it understandable that though they somehow can tell when a person is looking directly at them they can't track all possible light paths (mirrors, etc).
While it's hard to guess exactly how they do it, I would speculate that the system involves ultrasonic sonar in some way based on the relationship between bats and vampires.-- scad mientist, Aug 30 2012 It's always possible that vampires are capable of mass-energy conversion, in which case a few swallows of blood would more than account for their energy requirements.-- MechE, Aug 30 2012 Technically all you need is a parascopic sight, which will not display an image of the vampire, that's the simplest vampire detector - however, it doesn't detect , that's the whole principle behind it.-- rcarty, Aug 30 2012 //Bullet used is made of silver// Doctor Jeff Rosenberg: "The second way to kill a vampire, Count; three silver bullets through the heart!" [Jeff shoots Dracula three times] Count Dracula: "No, Rosenberg, that is a werewolf." ...from 'Love at First Bite'. This was half-baked in the Channel 4 (UK) TV series 'Ultraviolet'. The investigators carried guns with a small, fold out camera screen on them (the conceit being that vampires don't show up on remote recording devices) so that they could spot if people were vampires by looking at their absence on the screen rather than their rather obvious non-absence at the pointy end of the gun. The guns fired charcoal bullets with a cross carved into the nose. It was an excellent series by the way. I thoroughly recommend it.-- DrBob, Aug 30 2012 The effect of silver on vampires is reported differently by different selections among your many choices in fine literature.-- MechE, Aug 30 2012 We'll have to sort that out for national security's sake. The last thing we need is uncertainty when an outbreak of fawning teenage girl love-angst all over the country over some raging vampire-virus turns hundred year-old men into pasty-white heart throbs.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 30 2012 //Somehow the vampires are inserting their image inside the observer's head somewhere between when light is received and when the image is by the brain.
So, something like the home shopping channel? Or else they'd never sell any of that shite, if you'll pardon my Klatchian...-- not_morrison_rm, Aug 30 2012 We know that vampires cannot be seen in a mirror. But are we so certain that we know what can be seen instead? Everyone is assuming that we see the scenery behind them, as if the light from the scenery has passed right through them. But I wonder if we actually see nothing, like the blind spot in our eyes, and our minds interpolate scenery to fill the vampire-shaped gap in our visual field?-- pocmloc, Aug 30 2012 What are you proposing [pocmloc]? That we hunt the hunter Nosferatu? That we wake the beast that has receded into mythology by venturing below hallowed ground into crypts and catacombs armed with nothing but mirrors and popular fiction? You are a mad fool. Do you not know of the badasses you will find there?-- rcarty, Aug 30 2012 So if you look in your rearview mirror and see a naked person riding along, it is possible that he or she (you could tell which) has inadvertently put on the clothes of a vampire.-- bungston, Aug 30 2012 I see DrBob beat me to mentioning the Ultraviolet (the excellent 1998 TV series rather than the unrelated silly-but-lots-of-fun 2006 film). They extend the 'cannot be seen in mirror' trope of vampires to cameras, CCTV, cellphones and so on. They also make it the whole way through the series without using the word 'vampire'.-- st3f, Aug 30 2012 garlic flavored holy water-- Voice, Aug 30 2012 // the beast that has receded into mythology //
Ah, yet another graduate of the Head-Under-The-Blankets school of self-defence ...
Just because you don't believe in it doesn't stop it being real ...-- 8th of 7, Aug 30 2012 It must be only your own naive confidence in the fiend's nonexistence that would lead you to infer such a thing on my behalf. If even you had the faintest idea that only in the seldom peaceful comfort of my most pleasant dreams can I escape the constant fearful expectation of dracula's bite, you would know a fear that would not even escape your laundress. So please, save me your paltry lessons on doubt and credulity, for I'm afraid I already know fear.-- rcarty, Aug 30 2012 I was just pondering about how the ALL BADASS mode would be useful on other devices, and in other endeavors.-- bungston, Mar 12 2015 random, halfbakery