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The Cheese Slicing Laser
purduephotog writes "Xiaochun Li of The University of Wisconsin-Madison has come up with the ultimate gift for those high-tech wine and cheese connoisseurs: A cheese slicing laser. More detailed information is available at Optics.Org."
"Basically, the cutting process is cold laser ablation, like that in laser eye surgery," said Li. "At 266 nm it gives a very good clean cut, although going deeper than 10 mm is difficult."
Now how am I supposed to cut my 10 pound wheels into Valentines decorations?
Hehe!
"It smelled really bad," he said.
Don't tell that a Swiss!
I can see the advertisement now...it's how the civilized cut the cheese.
I've already said all that I have to say.
My cheese grater isn't laser-guided, but it is highly powerful. And it can run Linux!
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Acclaimed Humourist
I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
Someone is going to lose a finger within the first week it is out on the market.
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we just need to get some frickin sharks to put the frickin lasers on their frickin heads!!
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But for home use?
Not going to happen in the us at least.
The legal ramifications and potential misuse will make it unlikely (as cool as it would be)
to ever to be offered to consumers.
Bring it on!
Now if they'll just invent a laser-powered washing machine we'll be making some real progress.
Man, this would have been great back a few years ago when I was working at a plant that packaged natural cheese. The most automated process we had was using pnuematic cylindars to push a 40# block of Cheddar through a frame with criss-crossed stainless steel wires. I can just imagine how much closer we could have hit the weight tolerances using lasers... Plus you don't have to stop and clean a laser beam every once in a while..
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer
I've always wondered about the smell when one of my co-workers said "awww, who cut the cheese?"
and now I know it's because someone was using the wrong frequency of laser. If I use ultraviolet lasers, my farts won't smell.
Thanks for the informative article.
(...or have I missed something completely?)
TDz.
Now all we need is a corkscrew that doesn't leave floaty bits in the wine and we're all set.
Maybe it was just my eyes jumping around but did anyone else read "Chinese slicing laser" ....had me worried there for a second
I think it was Xiaochun Li and Cheese slicing laser
"In a country where you can buy cinnamon dental floss, cheese in a spray can, and edible womens panties, are people really breaking their balls to save nine cents on a fucking phone call?!"
Well, now we can add cheese cutting lasers to that list.
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I have a cheese slicer that is one the old wire kind and its a bitch to keep clean. Those old chees slicers are a health risk to a certain extent because there is always trace slivers of cheese embedded in the wood and along the pivot joint for the slice wire. Of course the component isnt dishwasher safe and the parts where the cheese sticks are too small for even one of those green scrubbies. so I say BRAVO LASER CHEESE SLICER INVENTOR PERSON!
// Empires come and go we live forever
I have created this giant "laser" to threaten the "Earth" with "snacks."
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
Now I want one! All I can think of is reenacting the scene from Goldfinger where they attempt to kill Bond with the laser that would slice him up the middle starting with his naughty bits. The plan is foiled (of course) but you get the idea!
Li tried again using a new class of laser that emits light in ultraviolet, and therefore shorter, wavelengths. That laser, known as a cold laser, cuts by blasting apart the molecular bonds that hold materials together.
By breaking molecular bonds in the cheese, wouldn't that alter the chemistry of the cheese where it had been cut? Could this inadvertently produce carcinogenic compounds (like when you burn meat)?
Do not look at cheese slicer with remaining eye!
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Nice. And people wonder why US obesity rates are so high?
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This sig is inoffensive.
"At 266 nm it gives a very good clean cut, although going deeper than 10 mm is difficult."
make it slice chunks from a 20 lb wheel of baby swiss, and i'll be happy. 10mm thick cheese is not that impressive.
I mean for fuck sakes geeks! How many Bond movies do you need to watch to get a hint that there is a market demand? I've totally lost count of the times the DEA MI5 or FSB have had me manacled to a post kicking the fuck out of me and I'm thinking like "shit ... if only I could use my Rolex to slice off these handcuffs I beat you round this cell motherfucker"
So they do invent it and whats it used for 'CHEESE'!!. For fuck sake - I'm going to hunt the inventor down and whack him - the stupid fuck.
As they say, only in Wisconsin
This is why California will never overtake Wisconsin for cheese production. We take our cheese seriously! Sure, California may be producing more milk thanks to their farming factories, but their cheese is weak. Take their pepperjack for instance. In Wisconsin, that stuff has bite. In California, it tastes like those stupid shredded cheeses. Weak man, weak.
Oh, and don't believe all those commercials you see about how cows are happier in Sunny California and are so glad to get away from frigid Wisconsin. Those cows are roasting inside their factory farms where they have to stand on cement all day. At least in Wisconsin, we keep our cows in pastures.
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That was 1 cheezy comment...
I'm up to here with articles on Slashdot that oversell an item.
Saying that it makes a great gift made it sound like something already in production, or at least imminently so.
If it can't yet slice through a block of cheese, then it's hardly a cheese slicer, is it?
Granted, I suppose there's something to be said for having slices of cheese cut into neat shapes. Oh, wait, my bad. There really isn't. As far as I'm concerned, shaped cheese is just one luxury that kids today will have to do without. When I was young, I got a normal square piece of cheese put in my sandwich, and that was if I was lucky!
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
I'm no laser expert, but by the description in the article, it sounds like this kind of technology could be applied to all sorts of food. If it isn't actually burning a slice, but rather "blasting" the molecules apart, couldn't it be used for meat, bread, whatever else has similar issues with bacteria?
Seems to me the higher energy costs in these factories would be offest by the gain in work hours that would have before been used for cleaning, disinfecting, sharpening, replacing etc of the blades.
Cool as this might be, it's the wrong tool for the job. Waterjets are waaaaay better for things like this. Faster and no smell. Have a look at: http://www.flowcorp.com/
You should keep in mind that even a visible laser is invisible unless a) you're looking right at it, or b) it's scattered off of something. I don't think that making it visible would really help much in terms of safety, although it would make it easier to aim.
A laser cutter is good for food processing in general. No blade to clean, no blade for bacteria to cling to. I can see uses in other food processing besides cheese. Anything that can cut with out the possibility of contaminating anything else, cheese or otherwise, is a good thing.
From memory, the purpose of technology is to make things easier for us. This technology will help the cheese/dairy industries and lead to some nice economic stimulation. Although a cheese laser may sound kind of stupid, it's a perfectly legitimate techology.
the article did state He believes that the work could point to a new and lucrative market future for lasers. "The food industry could be a huge market for lasers just like the semiconductor industry," Li said. "We've also been asked to cut meat and potato with a laser but we haven't done that yet."
So if this happens, we might see "a fine assortment of ginsu kitchen lasers (as seen on TV)."
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
No mush. I've seen waterjets cut a fresh doughnut into 5 concentric rings. Perfect, clean cut. The water jet itself is very,very fine. Extremely high-pressure waterjets can cut through steel as well as cheese.
I've done experiments with 266 nm laser beams. Ultraviolet light makes nearly every organic molecule fluoresce. It is usually quite easy to see the spot where the laser beam (even if it is just a few milliwatts) hits a surface.
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This is already being done to french fries to make sure that they arn't too long. They pass down a belt and a laser will cut them if they are too long. I guess McDonalds etc have all sorts of specs about what size the french fries need to come in. A quick google should be able to find these for they have been around for a while. They were even mentioned on the TLC show Modern Marvels (along with fun slow mo video).
-Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
By breaking molecular bonds in the cheese, wouldn't that alter the chemistry of the cheese where it had been cut? Could this inadvertently produce carcinogenic compounds (like when you burn meat)?
It sounds like it might, although the article didn't really give enough information to tell. In a nutshell, when you cleave cheese apart with a mechanical cheese cutter like a knife or a wire, the only thing you "break apart" (using the term loosely) is Van der Waals forces, and those do not hold the atomic components within molecules together (as covalent or ionic bonds do) so the action does not generally result in chemical change. Long-chain polymers will get broken too, but they typically have the same chemistry whatever their molecular length.
If the laser is truly breaking the bonds of non-polymeric organic molecules then this doesn't sound too healthy chemically, but that is not the only way that a laser might cut without burning. It is possible to imagine rapid vaporization of water or of other volatiles in the material causing sudden expansion which would cleave sections apart through vapor pressure, in a manner very similar to mechanical cutting, and hence safely.
We'll have to wait for further information on what is really going on before we know whether there are any concerns about chemical side effects.
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With an XY table (as mentioned), Camera, Some custom software, perhaps, you could reduce fat content in steaks by using the laser to break down the fat. Trim the steak on the edge and reduce the marbling and reduce the fat. Enter the reduction in %, and the laser does the work. Weigh the drippings to veryify the reduction. Though I like a well marbled ribeye, with this system, you may be able to make a steak more consistant.
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The ABC News article makes it sound like the laser was used to cut a block of cheese up into thin slices. This is not the case, according to the optics.org article. In reality, they've successfully cut patterns in a thin slice of cheese (making a dinosaur, letters and numbers--kids like that stuff), without using a stainless steel die cutter. In fact, the laser can't really cut deeper than 1 cm, less than 1/2 inch. So, slicing up a big block of cheese with a giant laser beam in an industrial setting, let alone in your kitchen, will have to wait.
While "Smut and Eggs" is indeed a real place, it is in fact just a minor curiosity.
But your implication that Madison is lacking in culture is just dead wrong. This is the city that built a $67 million convention center that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This is the city that is building a $100 million Arts District.
And considering Madison is approximately 100 miles to the outskirts of Chicago, your distance is either very precisely chosen, or very arbitrarily.
Your pneumatic cylinders and steel wire (or in this Wisconsin guy's case a die to stamp out the cheese shapes) would be about one zillion times cheaper in terms of capital outlay, operating expenses, and maintenance.
If I'm not mistaken, these are the same sort of lasers used in tatoo removal and/or laser eye surgery. Both procedures are crazy expensive, and a large part of that cost seems to be due to the laser.
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The "ostehovel" as we call it here in norway is much cooler ;P
Image of the ostehovel. It's a norwegian invention too.
Seriously, we use it almost every day to put cheese on our bread.
It was a feta-compli.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I'd be more intrested in a laser lawn mower. Less Noise, less weight to push around, etc. and I imagine that if you had a flat enough lawn you could mount it on a track on the side of the lawn, so all you'd have to do is push a button.
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