What Would You Do With the World's Most Powerful Laser? 143
sciencehabit writes "This week, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced an important milestone on the road to achieving ignition, which could lead to producing controlled fusion reactions here on Earth. But NIF isn't just about harnessing the energy of the stars—it's about learning how stars produce their energy in the first place. In fact, pushing matter to extreme pressures and temperatures lets scientists explore all sorts of unanswered questions. At the annual meeting of AAAS in Chicago four physicists sat down with Science Magazine to discuss NIF's basic science potential and what experiments they would do if they had the laser all to themselves."
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I would probably shoot my fucking eye out, kid.
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You can't point it anywhere, it's in a sphere and the lasers face inward. :P
But to your point (being some organization), if I had the world's most powerful laser, I would take the politics out of it so that the scientists could make progress. So, technically, you're not too far off.
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Illegal Parking at Livermore Labs (Score:2)
You really don't want to park in the wrong place at Livermore Labs. I don't know if they're still running the 5-story-high magnet they had back in the late 80s / early 90s when I went to some graphics conferences there, but if they can't just pick up your car and move it out of the way with the magnet, now they've got the Big Laser. Also don't go parking near the "No Parking - Spilled Plutonium" signs (though actually the nastier environmental problems they've had there have been leftover junk left over f
I would.. (Score:5, Funny)
>What Would You Do With the World's Most Powerful Laser?
I would attach it to the world's biggest shark. Obvious really.
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Of course you would. Next up would be mutant sea bass, ill tempered...mutant sea bass.
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Not to mention that the super heated water being turn to steam next to its head would make for instant shark soup.
Also the shark's complete inability to aim said device or do anything other than freak out and try to remove it.
And I am just getting started, I have not even began to address all the practical lim
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Such a buzz kill, man. When I invent a shrink ray to shrink the laser, guess whos going to be the laser shark's first victim. Muhahahaha
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A shrink ray should be easy once someone finds an exploitable defect in the software that is the universe. [slashdot.org]
Re:I would.. - solution (Score:2)
Electric eels with lasers, they have their own power source.
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point it at the moon
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... and then carve a face in it.
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I would set up my lab somewhere in Prairie Chapel, Texas. That way if anything goes wrong, only history would tell.
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Oh well, I was just thinking I would start my own series "Would it melt?". I guess I'm not as evil as I could.
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Re: I would.. (Score:2)
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Have you ever met a whale shark with a 5TW laser on its head?
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Meanwhile the whale shark is thinking... ... Finaly I get to eat something other that raw krill!
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Obligatory XKCD (Score:1)
Don't forget the giant helium balloon... http://xkcd.com/585/
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Story is obvious shark bait (Score:1)
...May as well have been titled "Please insert shark with laserbeam joke here".
Mount it on a shark ... (Score:2)
obviously.
Clearly. (Score:4, Funny)
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Rise and shine Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the trolling
I'm trying to provide an incentive for Slashdot to add a "+0, somebody had to do it" mod.
Plus, half-life jokes lose humor quite rapidly at first; but people dislike solving differential equations, so they usually just wave their hands and admit that they remain at least slightly funny more or less forever!
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I don't know about that. My experience is they're still good after 7 years and don't need any follow-up jokes.
Popcorn (Score:5, Funny)
I'd make popcorn in Professor Hathaway's house, of course.
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There was some pretty Weird science back then..........
Awesome, nice 1985 reference there!
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Mount it on an airplane (Score:1, Funny)
Let those assholes on the ground get a taste of their own medicine.
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Spoooooonnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!
(My daughter loves that show!)
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Excellent tool for high density+temperature plasma (Score:1)
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I think you missed a proto-
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NIF was really for weapons research (Score:2)
Hey, what's your serious response doing here, in between all the suggestions about sharks with frikkin' lasers?
NIF was always really about fusion research for the nuclear weapons programs, just as almost everything else at Livermore Labs was either related to weapons research & development, or infrastructure for the R&D folks (e.g. they did some good development on email systems back in the 80s because their R&D folks needed good email.) Some of it's more direct development, some of it's more
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Mwahahaha (Score:2)
Toast my 80yo suburban neighbors barbecue for complaining about a few branches & leafs in my yard.
Either that, or prove that time traveling is actually possible.
tease the neighborhood cats (Score:1)
NOOOOO! (ob-xkcd) (Score:2)
The consequences of that could be terrible [xkcd.com]!
The shark would be safer - at least they can't climb trees.
Simple.... (Score:2)
Put it on an orbital weapons platform, then hold the moon for ransom of ......1 Million Dollars....
Nevermind it cost 22.4 Billion to get the platform launched..
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Dude, you forgot to put your pinky to your mouth!!!!
Stroking my cat... (Score:1)
I expect you to die, Mr. Bond.
Crazy Eddie (Score:2)
Launch a light sail to the stars
I'm surprised the NIF still exists, since (Score:2)
didn't the Congress vote to cut it'd funding?
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It wasn't cut, because it didn't have the word "Super" in the name. The "Superconducting Super Collider" got cut, because Congress saw the name "Super" in it, and obviously thought that it must be too expensive. US Scientists are very careful now about avoiding the use of the word "Super" in their projects now.
If it had been called, the "Super National Super Ignition Super Facility" . . . it would have been cut.
It wasn't cut because it is a nuclear weapons proj (Score:2)
The NIF is designed from front to back as a nuclear weapons project. The vast majority of its runs are dedicated to "NNSA" activities, the division of DOE for nuclear weapons engineering.
In particular, the NIF is used to calibrate the simulation codes used for the thermonuclear secondary. The lasers are there to ionize an outer 'hohlraum' which emits soft X-rays, simulating a fission primary. There are no difficult nuclear problems in a H-bomb, but there are difficult radiation and fluid mechanical probl
Mount it on a dune buggy (Score:2)
Invade a desert nation with a bunch of my weaponizedmotorcycle-riding buddies and blow up some tanks.
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...like a Megaforce? [youtube.com]
Power (Score:3)
1. Build large nuclear power plant on the moon.
2. Use strongest laser to beam power to earth.
Alternatively,
1. Build large solar plant
2. Bring it into space
3. Send it towards the Sun
4. Use strongest laser to beam power to earth.
(Warning: please think this over first; this was just me brainstorming.)
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You've never built a Microwave Power Station in SimCity have you?
Perfect target for this... (Score:5, Funny)
I would fire it at /.Beta.
I would NOT (Score:2, Funny)
look into it with my remaining eye.
What everyone else does with a laser of course.. (Score:1)
- cut out some plywood enclosure for your raspi or arduino.
- try to etch some copper off a pcb while looking at the reflection.
- mount it on a quad copter and shoot around in the neighborhood, then post it on youtube.
- try building a projector and accidentally burn down city hall.
The Practical Option (Score:2)
Sell it. I don't need the world's biggest laser. I'd much rather have the money.
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We all know the answer... (Score:3)
Dicks on the moon.
Fill Jerry's house with popcorn kernels... (Score:2)
Burn the worlds biggest ants (Score:1)
Burn the worlds biggest ants... what else?
First "pew! pew! pew!" post (Score:2)
Launch a spaceship! (Score:2)
Launch a spaceship, of course!
Burn (Score:2)
Probably replace my policy of ripping a new asshole where needed to burning a new asshole where needed.
Attach it to (Score:1)
I know what I'd do (Score:2)
I'd figure out a way to use it to stop all the ridiculous Hugh Pickens DOT com reposts on Slashdot.
Not really a fan of NIF (Score:2)
I can't say that I'm really a fan of the National Ignition Facility. The PR side of it is "a grand search into fusion power research", but the reality seems to be nuclear weapons research. Coupled with the fact that the project has had massive mismanagement and cost overruns from an original ~$1 Billion estimate to costing over $4.2 Billion. Advanced research is never predictable to be sure, and some cost overrun/failure is to be expected but a four fold increase in costs AND no ignition? Sounds like we
That jerk (Score:2)
Shoot Down Space Junk (Score:2)
Towards the Moon (Score:2)
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Get laid (Score:3)
Now this would impress chicks!
What else? (Score:2)
2. Tell everyone else it's for green energy.
3. Profit.
Conduct the ultimate experiment... (Score:1)
Can you pop enough corn to demolish a house?
richard.
destroy major city every hour on That is, unless (Score:2)
you pay me...one hundred billion dollars.
hmmmm (Score:2)
Bring My Enemies (Score:2)
Write obscenities (Score:2)
Show it some strangelove (Score:1)
I would point it at a landing airplane, (Score:2)
obviously
Q: What would you do with ... (Score:1)
A: Fit it to the head of the worlds largest shark
psssh. easy.. (Score:2)
Blow up the moon obviously.
With Alderaan gone (Score:1)
My car's new headlights (Score:1)
Practical fusion power is now (Score:1)
Practical fusion power is now only 25 years away.
Again.
Hold the world for ransom (Score:1)
Threaten to use the laser to melt the icecaps, and alter the world's climate, unless I were paid one million dollars.
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Who lives on the corner of May Day St and Glendale Place in Washing DC?
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study biological trasmutation? (Score:2)