Do phasers vapourize people?
Phasers supposedly “vapourize” people, but a flash-vapourization of a human being would be an extremely violent event, almost like a bomb going off. If you take 80kg of organic matter, ¾ of which is water, and vapourize it, you will have a steam explosion! Literary analysis: the authors obviously intended the phasers to vapourize people. They just didn’t understand how violent such an event would be. Therefore, we can conclude that they meant phasers to vapourize people. They even use the word “vapourize” onscreen. On the other hand, the Technical Manual describes nuclear disruption forces and nadions and funky chain reactions and subspace, so maybe the word “vapourize” is used onscreen as a Federation short-form to signify something else. Suspension of Disbelief: no vapour, therefore no vapourization. The subject disappears, but transporters do that too, and they don’t vapourize anything. Sorry, but there’s no evidence for phasers actually vapourizing anything. Case closed.
