The Texas Petawatt Laser

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.

Comments

Wrong

[Poromenos1]

The duration of the laser is a gross underestimation, it's nowhere near that short. In reality, it's about 100 attoseconds long, and we all know 100 > 0.1...

Re:global warming

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

let me guess, someone will point out how this is making global warming worse,

Let me guess. Someone with no understanding of the mechanisms of climate change or Lasers will jump into this discussion with a piece of irrelevant flamebait.

we need to hug some tree's to offset the carbon.

Guess what? Lasers produce heat, not carbon. (you fucking idiot).