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U of MI Produces Strongest Laser Ever
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.
Now if you can get it to fit in the weapons bay of a B1-B we might have something.
Now all they have to do is build a huge moon-sized military base around it.
/rumor/ Is this more powerful than DARPA's EM laser where they drilled a hole in the earth, made a spherical chamber, and set off a nuke in it? The idea being that the chamber would shape the EM pulse into a coherent beam.
This development is clearly useless until the system is miniturised to the point it can be mounted on a shark.
But will it fit on a shark?
Ganty
That's nothing! I can perform for 3 seconds once every ten minutes!
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
...do not stare into the laser beam with the remaining eye ... oh ... nevermind.
20 billion trillion watt per square centimeter = 2x10^26 Wm^-2
300 terawatt of power = 3x10^14 W
1.3 micron wide = ca. 1.7x10^-12 m^2 (for a square shape)
30 femtosecond = 3x10^-14 s
hope that clarifies things.
So this is like a serious question:
What can you do with this thing? Why does it exist? Just to say it's there, or does it have some function beyond bragging rights?
And, pray tell, what would a mere 9 joules pulse accomplish anything from a B1-B?
That "300 terawatts" is nothing if you take into account how short the beam lasts.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Because focussed correctly, the extremely high field strenght in the focal point can create effects that at first seem physically implausible.
:)
For example there is one effect that seems to "break" quantum phyiscs (or more exactly, the photo-effect): You can excite electrons out of energy levels that are bound stronger than the photon energy. Even if they are bound _a_ lot stronger. The electric fields can be strong enough to strip atoms from everything down to and including the k-shell (I have one seen a presenter show a silde mentioning 37-photon effects...)
This can be used to create hard x-rays, or, of course, as a particle accelerator: You can GeV on ion energyies from them with a relatively simple setup.
This is of course for "normal" FS-Lasers, wich fill not much more than a large optical bank. But something tells me that _this_ one can make even more intersting stuff happen
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Now all they have to do is use it against the RIAA.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Do not stare into laser with remaining city block.
She was not impressed.
I guess these researchers don't consider the possibility that there may be advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Perhaps they should say the KNOWN universe
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
For Gawd sake, don't tell the sharks.
Do not stare into laser with remaining head.
Possibly the most powerful laser in the universe...
Possibly not very impressive to a squadron of Klingon attack cruisers...
All you would need is a tracking system and a large spinning mirror, and you could vaporize a human target from space.
What would happen if you focused this laser onto a Grain of Sand ?
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
roflwpimp
Student: What are we going to do with this immensely powerful laser, professor? :D
Professor: We shall commence "Phase 2", we shall place the "la-ser" on something called "the moon"
Student: And then we can hold the world ransom for a horrendously large amount of money
Professor: Hell no! We're going to wipe all other universities off the face of the Earth!
it is the most powerful laser in the universe
Only if there is no other intelligent life in the universe in which case any technology that is the best in some way on earth is also the best in the universe.
Anyway, what can it do? You'd think they would give some examples of burning holes through stuff.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I can only imaging what hell LaserCats will cause with these 300 terawatt devices...
--- Shoo-be-doo-be-do-wop-say-what-yeah!
For this story, the above comment should be modded +1, Insightful, not +1, Funny.
of this technological terror you've constructed.
Okay, it is impressive, but what the non-scientists might be missing here is that energy in Joules is the product of time and power. For a unit of energy you get more Watts as you have less Seconds. It's like rolling a ball of modelling clay out, the longer it grows the thinner it gets.
Billons of Watts is a large amount of power
Femtoseconds is an extremely short amount of time.
So, the energy delivered by this isn't as much as some other lasers (like a continuous beam amonium chemical maser that can be used as an anti-aircraft weapon). The term "high power" laser doesn't really mean what you think. You'll be wanting a "high energy" laser for your sharks Sir.
...suddenly begins new research into building even LARGER laser.
I wonder how many ants I could kill with that laser...
that's the first idea that came to my mind hehehe
Was not that far off with their idea of making a VERY big laser?
cat
Inquiring minds want to know... to run this thing, do they have an on-premises nuclear reactor, or just an obscenely high electric bill? TFA is short on details in that department.
I know it's not actually using that full rated 300 terawatts ("300 times the capacity of the entire U.S. electricity grid") in such incredibly short bursts, but nonetheless, it's still got to eat a lot of juice.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
"researchers speculate it is the most powerful laser in the universe"
They say that the applied Physics dept. at Alpha Centauri almost got funding for a Laser that was twice as powerful, but the funds got sidetracked to fund a SETI project.
Do not look into this with remaini -oh shit.
Out of honest curiosity, at what do they point such a strong laser? My movie-fed ignorance has me imagining the beam burning through walls.
... 9 Joules delivered in each pulse, one every 10 seconds. Giving an average power of about 1 Watt. Ideal for taking over very small universes.
"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 ..."
Please, won't someone think of the ants?!
The article states:
"It contains 300 terawatts of power. That's 300 times the capacity of the entire U.S. electricity grid."
So, where exactly are they getting the power for this thing? Does this explain why my lights were blinking the other day? I figured it was The Cheat, but perhaps...
all i have to say is "1 Million dollars"..... (* evil grin, pinkie curled at side of mouth *)
Now watch as our evil overlords are brought down. Color them dead.
"Do not look into laser with remaining eye"
Just start with whale sharks.
Article is wrong. Vulcan in the UK is a 1 petawatt laser, which is 3 times more powerful, and has been running since 2004:
http://www.clf.rl.ac.uk/news/CLF_News/vulcanpetawatt.htm
They even have a plaque from the Guinness book of records.
1025 F Street N.W. , Tenth Floor , Washington, D.C. 20004
Long -77.02604 Lat 38.89790
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Ok, maybe just the planet,... still a long way to go before planet Mars has to worry,... Or, do we take out Venus instead? Venus is a peaceful planet, which might make for a more effective demonstration to scare those pesky, war-mongering Martians,... ;-)
You win the Obstinate Geek Award. (Real Genius is a geek classic. Get off your ignorant horse and see it already!)
... in the sky, could we put the gas in Uranus on fire?
-x- Sorry my bad English. I'll have him tarred and feathered. -x-
Maybe some of the researchers should do some research into their speculations, it's not even the most powerful laser in the US.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) https://lasers.llnl.gov/ at LLNL is orders of magnitude larger than this and its not even fully up and running yet https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2007/NR-07-11-05.html
Groovy pic.
C:\>ping home
Pinging home [192.168.1.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=10000ms TTL=63
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 10000ms, Maximum = 10000ms, Average = 10000ms
They are going to focus it on the Horseshoe, and vaporize Jim Tressel.
Watch for the spread offense.
Go Blue!
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap971129.html
I'm not sure I believe that Eta Carina is producing natural laser, but if it is, I'll bet it's more powerful than the M-Go Blue Ray. And apparently has a very precise aiming mechanism to hit us so that we can detect it. If not, it's spewing all that radiation in all directions and we got lucky to detect it. That is more than 9 joules.
The Vulcan has more power (wattage). But this UofMI laser focuses the blast onto a smaller area, and it lasts less than 1/10th the time. So, the beam is more intense.
I heard it has a gigantic sign on it for chuck norris:
"In cases of emergency, feel free to break out titanium wired plexiglass"
"...introducing my Dissertation topic... "The Effects of the U MICH. HERCULES laser system upon tubas and grass athletic surfaces.""
(this side of your brain intentionally left blank)
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
a Winnebego, a percentage of the prizes and retirement!!!
Now we just need to work on the minor technical details of getting enough power in a mobile form that can be attached to Elasmobranchii to power the laser.
n/t.
Professor "We only do serious science around here...now my illustrious hard working assistant Jonson shall respond our my behalf"
Johnson "Our laser is bigger than yours...Nyaa Nyaa"
Ah. I see your problem. You're a "High Cinema" snob who's too "good" for an 80's popcorn classic, and you're too stubborn to admit that you were really just piggy-backing on the first post to elevate the attention to your post like some sort of forum remora once someone pointed out your ignorance of the joke.
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.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
enough with shark references already... we get it already!
Urm! Very powerful this laser is.
doesn't sound too impressive to me ;p
somebody calculate this through
I too have a new toy, Mr. Bond.
anyone up for a game of laser tag?