U of MI Produces Strongest Laser Ever 244
eldavojohn writes "Weighing in at a mere 20 billion trillion watts per square centimeter and containing a measly 300 terawatts of power, the University of Michigan has broken a record with a 1.3-micron speck wide laser. It's about two orders of magnitude higher than any other laser in the world and can perform for 30 femtoseconds once every ten seconds — some of the researchers speculate it is the most powerful laser in the universe. 'If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of a new laser beam made in a University of Michigan laboratory ... To achieve this beam, the research team added another amplifier to the HERCULES laser system, which previously operated at 50 terawatts. HERCULES is a titanium-sapphire laser that takes up several rooms at U-M's Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. Light fed into it bounces like a pinball off a series of mirrors and other optical elements. It gets stretched, energized, squeezed and focused along the way.'" And ... cue the evil chortling.
Not so cool (Score:3, Insightful)
That "300 terawatts" is nothing if you take into account how short the beam lasts.
Most powerful laser in the universe? (Score:3, Insightful)
LS
Re:Yes but... (Score:5, Insightful)
- John
Re:Not so cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Really what did I expect, 3/4 of the people here weren't even born yet or were still shitting their diapers when Real Genius came out.
I guess I should have wasted "first post" on something obvious like "Sharks with frikin' laser beams attached to their heads"
If you've never seen the movie, your ability to post on /. is hereby suspsended until you do.
Re:Safety first (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.leftmind.net/safety/laser.pdf [leftmind.net]
Re:Yes but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You've obviously done a lot more thinking about the whole Dr-Evil thing than me!
Re:Not so cool (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not so cool (Score:1, Insightful)
Ah, a "high cinema" snob. (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations. You have now made a fool of yourself in front of a crowd by trying to prove that you're better than them for being ignorant of "low cinema." Few things are more sad than a defense of ignorance. Also, giving your autobiography in response to questions about your taste on the internet just shows your own insecurity. Lurk more.