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The Texas Petawatt Laser

Posted by kdawson on from the you-can-pet-a-dog-or-you-can-pet-a-cat dept.

Roland Piquepaille notes the hype surrounding what the University of Texas at Austin is calling the world's most powerful laser. During a tenth of a femtosecond this laser is 2,000 times more powerful than all the power plants in the US, and is brighter than sunlight on the surface of the Sun. On his own blog Roland points out that UT's is not the first petawatt laser; that distinction belongs to a system installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1996.

3 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Time duration? by famebait · · Score: 3, Insightful

    even I can say my torch is brighter than the sunlight on the surface of the sun for 1 gazillionth of a second.

    You could say it, but it wouldn't be true.

    --
    sudo ergo sum
  2. Re:So what? by YeeHaW_Jelte · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "It's odd that the first thing that you thought of was how Americans suck and how Europeans are so great with their LHC."

    Those are your words, not his.

    --

    ---
    "The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
  3. Re:the fools! by Digestromath · · Score: 2, Insightful
    You can have mini-black holes, but you can't really have mini-novae or mini-supernovae (mini-super would be a contradiction anyways right?).

    However, your right be concerned about the potential bouts of uncontrollable fusion/fission and thier scientist vaporizing shockwaves.

    The mini black holes aren't a worry. It's when they become large enough to devour scientists, and thier space/time warping event horizons encroach on your personal boundaries, then you should worry.

    Grey goo? Seriously, you're a human. We replicate out of control consuming any natural resources we can get our hands on. We're just not really efficient grey goo.