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World's Newest, Most Powerful Laser Comes Online
deglr6328 writes "The OMEGA EP laser at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics was dedicated today at the Robert L. Sproull Center for Ultra High Intensity Laser Research. The new laser, which has been in design since ~2002 will, at 1 kilojoule per 1 picosecond pulse, be the highest energy petawatt-scale laser ever created by far. For a fleeting fraction of a second, it will deliver a beam of infrared light at 1054 nm that is more powerful than the total energy consumption of all human activity on the planet, to a tiny spot the size of the head of a pin. Previous petawatt scale lasers such as the one created at Lawrence Livermore labs in the late '90s and (dismantled in 1999) were capable of only several hundred joules per pulse. The new OMEGA EP laser will be able to manifest power densities sufficient to examine Unruh and Hawking radiation-like phenomena in the laboratory and will have the capability to directly produce nuclear reactions through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration."
wheres the most powerful shark, step on up!
For a fleeting fraction of a second, it will deliver a beam of infrared light at 1054 nm that is more powerful than the total energy consumption of all human activity on the planet, to a tiny spot the size of the head of a pin.
Ok, but can it kill and fit in my hand?
Fiesta Online
...of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to generate a 1 kilojoule per 1 picosecond pulse is insignificant, next to the power of a good Slashdotting.
More powerful than the total ENERGY consumption of all the human activity on the planet? It's only one kilojoule. It would be much more accuracte to say that the POWER output for a picosecond would be greater than the combined POWER consumption of the entire planet.
But that raises another question: Do most people understand the difference between ENERGY and POWER, anyway? the two words seem to be used almost interchangabily by your average Joe.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
More powerful than the total ENERGY consumption of all the human activity on the planet? It's only one kilojoule. It would be much more accuracte to say that the POWER output for a picosecond would be greater than the combined POWER consumption of the entire planet.
But that raises another question: Do most people understand the difference between ENERGY and POWER, anyway? the two words seem to be used almost interchangabily by your average Joe.
Of course! Power is what you get when Energy sits around for a while
Even if that were true, how on Earth could you consume that much power without some serious power disruptions?
You have been warned!
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Is it just a coincidence or does this story have anything to do with the fact that yesterday Google had lasers on its main page (which I assume commemorated to 50 years of the creation of lasers, either that or "first laser!" must be the latest new Internet fad)?
You just got troll'd!
.. to put a sign up on my office door "No Hawking"
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
On my office in Germany "Kein Unruh!"
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Actually (although I hate to reply twice) I've just noticed something in your statement that doesn't sit quite right.
:) (not trying to be pedantic, and I apologise if I'm mistaken)
You've said "POWER output for a picosecond would be greater than the combined POWER consumption of the entire planet"
I'm not a physicist, but isn't Power Energy per Time, thus Power output for a picosecond is Energy per Time per picosecond? Are you trying to say Energy output for a picosecond (ie 1 kJ)? I think what they are saying is that 1kJ per picosecond (a measure of power) = 10^12 kW (a measure of power.
I'm just a bit confused about what you're saying
Step 1: Store 1kJ in a tank of capacitors
Step 2: Short the terminals
Step 3: ???
Step 4: You just consumed the total power output of a power plant for a very small fraction of a second.
(The ??? step can be anything, your capacitors might explode and kill you if you have bad karma.)
Don't shoot it in your foot, son!
...stop humping the world's newest, most powerful "laser".
Circumcision is child abuse.
Where's the KABOOM? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering KABOOM!
Imagine a rave with those! Even better a beowulf- I'll just shutup there.
`Jarik
The OMEGA EP laser shark at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Bioenergetics was dedicated today at the Dr. E. Vill Center for Ultra Evil Laser Shark Research. The new shark, which has been growing since ~2002 will, at 1 kilojoule per 1 picosecond pulse, have the highest energy petawatt scale laser ever mounted on the back on a shark, by far. For a fleeting fraction of a second, it will deliver a beam of infrared light at 1054 nm that is more powerful than the total power output of all other shark activity on the planet, to a tiny spot the size of the head of a pin. Previous petawatt scale shark lasers such as the one created at Lawrence Lawless labs in the late 90's (and dismantled in 1999) were capable of only several hundred joules per pulse. The new OMEGA EP laser shark will be able to manifest power densities sufficient to exert power over various just-above-soon-below sea-level countries and will have the capability to directly attack nuclear submarines through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration.
That movie is 11 years old now. The joke is dead.
If you want to beat a dead horse, why not bring back "hot grits"? That was a good one.
Or if you just can't help quoting Austin Powers, why not quote the blackjack joke instead? "I also like to live dangerously." That's the most underappreciated line in the movie - maybe the most underappreciated line of all time.
How many jewels do you need to get that?!
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yes, but It couldn't be held in Australia. I don't think rave qualifies as a legitimate reason.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
The new OMEGA EP laser will be able to manifest power densities sufficient to examine Unruh and Hawking radiation-like phenomena in the laboratory and will have the capability to directly produce nuclear reactions through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration
What about black holes? I refuse to be impressed except if it can create at least a tiny black hole. They seem to be all the rage nowadays.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Worlds biggest laser online? Cool. What's the IP?
All Rights Reversed.
The Central Laser Facility in the UK has a laser Astra-Gemini that will produce a greater intensity on target. It is a dual beam laser with a repetiton rate of 3 shots per minutes.
The building to house this laser is like a small house but with a shielded room for the target area.
- Astra- Gemini : 15 J on target in 30 fs : Single Beam Intensity to 10^22 W/cm2.
- OMEGA EP : 1 kJ in 1 ps; on-target intensities of greater than 2 x 10^20 W/cm2.
the pico second ignition should be called slow ignition compared with 30 femtosecond.
Thanks to this breakthrough the sequel to the 80's movie "The Manhattan Project" will be 90% shorter with 300% more John-Lithgow-Scrunched-Up-Nose per cm2
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
if we aim that to a human being?
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
If the US Air Force had a sense of humor, they would name the YAL-1 "Shark."
...is the World's Newest, Most Powerful villain® to match it.
Anyone, Anyone?
You're right in that power is energy per time, in this case the energy is one kilojoule and the time is one picosecond, so the power is one kilojoule per picosecond.
What the GP means is that, during that interval of one picosecond, the thing is emitting more power than is being consumed by all the planet. The total energy emitted by the laser pulse is that power multiplied by one picosecond, and the result of this multiplication is one kilojoule.
An interesting bit of information here is a round figure for the power consumption of all humanity: one kilojoule per picosecond. To get the equivalent in kilowatts, multiply one kilojoule by 1000000000000, because a kilowatt is one kilojoule per second.
Fight the power. Looks like it's WORK (or transmitted energy) multiplied by TIME.
The electrical unit of power is a Watt, and the transmitted energy is measured in Amps, and I guess time is measured by the potential difference or Volts.
How does voltage translate into time exactly? I dunno...
where is that mound of fire ants that bit me @ the last BBQ.....
I wish I was clever!
"Do not stare into laser with remaining eye."
Shoop da freakin Woop indeed
1. Planetbusters (anime, 1984)
2. Real Genius (1985)
Scriptkiddies ready to hack newest laser.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
"ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration"
Gawd, I get a chubby just thinking about that.....
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
"We're gonna need a bigger shark"
10E15 watts?
9090909 libraries of congress?
One Pinatubo?
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
Ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration. When will the NCC-1701-D be upgraded with one of these?
Shoot down an enemy ICBM, even with rotating heat shields, reflective surfaces, etc.
:-(
Nice to have since other countries are working on their atomic programs, and missile systems. Suitcase nukes on the other hand
..........FULL STOP.
When you say "consumption" you generally refer to the derivative of the value, so in this case energy consumtion := power.
If I say "my car consumes a lot of fuel", I primarily mean that my car isn't very efficient, not that I drive a lot.
Nice that we can create things hotter than the sun in a lab.
All's true that is mistrusted
Where is the ZPM so we can use this at full power.
ok, so what is the website? I've got a few target of my own *cough* RIAA *cough*
...bad news for pins everywhere :(
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
how much popcorn could this thing pop when fired from space or a test aircraft?
Your generation looks back at the movies of yesteryear and remembers Star Wars. My generation looks back at the movies of yesteryear and remembers... Star Wars.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Their statement is recursive:
"For a fleeting fraction of a second, it will deliver a beam of infrared light at 1054 nm that is more powerful than the total energy consumption of all human activity on the planet"
Last I checked, Rochester (and the laser there) are located on planet earth. Strictly speaking, it could only consume all the power on the planet if everything else were shut off. 'Course, that statement would apply to everything else, including a blender. Here's a suggestion for the poster: "...more powerful than the total energy consumption of all other human activity on the planet..."
I want to see records for
* power for single-pulse laser, in watts
* energy per pulse of single-pulse laser, in joules
* power of continuous laser, in watts
* average energy per second for single-pulse lasers firing as rapidly as possible, in joules
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...and brother, when it disintegrates, it disintegrates (about his trusty Acme Disintegrating Pistol)In other news, Exxon cites laser testing as the reason for the increasing demand in energy. To quote an Exxon representative: "Total energy consumption has quintupled due to rising shark populations, and the need to attach this laser to their heads.
you homed in on that phrase too! It feels like something gets destroyed every time I say that.
Electric Field Initiated Photodisintegration -- take that!
damaged by dogma
Yeah but will it be able to cook a house filled with popcorn?
Step 5. Profit!
you take a car battery and discharge all of its energy in a picosecond or less, and for that split second, you are generating as much power as this laser.
Big deal.
Create a short with a small piece of iron filament from heavy steel wool. Wind a coil and place it in series with this wire and place the coil so it is parallel to the wire in such a way that when the wire turns to iron plasma the coil will pull the plasma and focus it. Now short this series circuit to your charged capacitors.
Describe the results.
you're right,it certainly could've been worded more accurately, but in my defense, /. edited the HELL out of what I submitted - removing links everywhere and CUTTING OUT A LOT of more interesting information like gee, I don't know what the laser will mainly be be used for. Which is really annoying because the hawking radiation stuff is only a minor part of what we're doing. They sat on the submission for a whole day and to answer the question of the poster below, NO it wasn't an accident that this was submitted on the 48th anniversary of the first laser being created and I mentioned that in my post. Very disappointing the editors here seem to think their readers can't handle a little hard science anymore. I think I'll go elsewhere when I want to submit a story from now on.....
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Lazlo: "Looks at the facts: very high power, portable, limited firing time, unlimited range. All you'd need is a big spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space."
(Mitch glances at Chris.)
Chris: "This is not good."
When can I buy it on thinkgeek? I need to melt some trashbags...
from 1000 miles away.
.. and they'll be selling them on wickedlasers.com :-)
Insert
watts are joules per second...that's why a kilojoule in a picosecond makes a shitload of watts... 1000 joules / 10^-12 seconds = 10^15 joules per second or watts ...simple...altho not to those on /. it would seem
Debian FTW
He's Howard The Duck!
Merf
captcha possibly
"One Pinatubo?
Several, unless you count the magma blob below.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.