Force Fields

In battle scenes of many science fiction movies we see the baddies roll up with their giant laser guns to shoot the good guys, who are protected by a visibly transparent force field. Why do the laser beams suffer deflection at the force field?

Answer

We don’t know why we can see the good guys through the battlefield force field via visible light at the same time that the visible laser beams cannot get through! This result might be due to some dramatic nonlinear natural effect not yet experienced in research labs, or the phenomenon is a pure artistic falsehood. We would bet on the latter. Obviously, the light transmission properties of a transparent material can change dramatically on absorbing energy, but the usual effect is hole burning, not reflection.

Then there is the problem of why the laser beams can be seen along their paths, unless the dust in the air above the battlefield scatters enough of the light. But when the laser beam originates in space where there is no air (or other scatterers in significant density), one can still see the laser beams. Is there no correct laser physics in these movies? Is there any correct physics at all?

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