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Ultra-Powerful Laser To Be Built In Romania

cripkd writes "The 3rd pillar from the ELI program was given the go ahead Tuesday: 'In Romania, Magurele, the ELI pillar will focus on laser-based nuclear physics. For this purpose, an intense gamma-ray source is foreseen by coupling a high-energy particle accelerator to a high-power laser.' Here are some specs and details about why this is not your regular key-chain laser."

18 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Now all they need... by GigG · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now all they need is a really big shark.

    --
    Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
    1. Re:Now all they need... by Chrisq · · Score: 1

      Now all they need is a really big shark.

      That's where Romania is getting the funding....

    2. Re:Now all they need... by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Not at all. They're flying all their materials in by vampire bat.

    3. Re:Now all they need... by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 1

      Yeah, saw the Top Gear episode where they were driving through Romania and struck that destination off my bucket list.

      --
      I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
  2. What's the point... by FSWKU · · Score: 1, Funny

    What's the point if we can't put one of these on a fricken shark? I mean, seriously. Is that too much to ask?

    --
    "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
    1. Re:What's the point... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Informative

      What's the point if we can't put one of these on a fricken shark? I mean, seriously. Is that too much to ask?

      Of course you can put one these on a shark. Unfortunately, you'd have to clone that Megalodon first, they're kind of rare these days.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:What's the point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What's the point if we can't put one of these on a fricken shark? I mean, seriously. Is that too much to ask?

      The gadget might be a tad bit too large to be mounted on a fish
      but I suppose that someone could bolt a shark on it.

    3. Re:What's the point... by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      You missed first post. Mods, he's redundant. In fact, the previous shark comment (actual FP) should be marked redundant as well because it's just too damned obvious.

      You want a non-obvious, far better (but still bad) shark joke? Come on, guys, have you no originality at all?

      Q: Why did the shark cross the road?
      A: To get to Romania.

  3. Re:We all know what's coming. by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is a clear step towards Dracula's moon laser.

    http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/11p16/

    The main problem with this is that it will inevitably lead to a Vampire vs Werewolf arms race.

  4. What is it to "coherently add" laser beams? by impossiblefork · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A week ago or so I wanted to build some sort of passive optical arrangement to combine two images additively. One can't do it with mirrors and if one tries to do it with lenses, or tries to use internal total reflection somehow it will turn out that one can never get the internally reflected ray and the ray the ray entering through the surface of the lens to coincide. In fact I ended up strongly suspecting that it couldn't be done.

    But "coherently adding" beams sounds exactly like this. Does anyone know if it really is the same thing, or how it works?

    1. Re:What is it to "coherently add" laser beams? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Some beam combining is just lens squeezing a bunch of side by side lasers down into a smaller beam, where the beam shape doesn't matter as much as beam power.

      The easiest way to combine two beams right on top of each other is just for them to have orthogonal polarizations, and run them "backwards" through one of the various optics that can split polarizations. You then end up with an unpolarized beam. With a little more care, if you can make sure the phases of the two beams are the same, you can combine two orthogonal linear polarized beams and end up with a linear beam output at 45 degrees to the original polarization, which then allows you to repeat the combining process. You can also use diffraction gratings to combine several beams on to one output beam, without using polarization.

      Doing these methods in a coherent fashion requires careful control of the relative phase of each laser, and starts acting more like phased arrays from radio/microwave bands. Things also get messy, as you can easily get into situations where ray optics no longer work and need to work with quasioptics.

  5. Intense gamma ray source? by rtobyr · · Score: 2

    Didn't Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno show us why this is a bad idea?

  6. Re:We all know what's coming. by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Funny

    the Romanians should well know only UV lasers can harm the sons and daughters of Vlad, Count of Draco; and only silver ion particle beams harm the lycanthrope

  7. Re:Fuck the EU by lordholm · · Score: 3, Informative

    Firstly, let us start with another rant: the ESM treaty has nothing to do with the spending of the individual member states, this is handled by another treaty called TSCG (known as the fiscal compact), assuming you mean to protest against the fiscal compact and not actually the ESM treaty.

    By the fiscal compact, no one need to ask permission for spending, unless the spend well above what they have previously agreed to, which actually means running a huge deficit, which in turn result in the deficit having to be payed back by your children. From that point of view, there is no democracy in overspending now, since the people who have to pay for do not yet have the right to vote and the government does not spend their money, they spend their future tax payers money. The treaty also does allow for substantial deficits, but only if the budget is balanced over a cycle. I.e. you can go minus now, as long as you go plus in a few years. In addition, the people who have negotiated the treaty are democratically elected.

    I do not know how you interpret the EU as the successor of nazi-germany, this just plain ridiculous. I will ignore Godwin on this, as I honestly believe that you do the sufferers of the war a great injustice by saying this. The Union's primary purpose is after all to build a lasting peace in Europe. This said, the Union also have very high standards for human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Everything opposite of the third reich.

    Should we go on... you may complain against some democratic deficiencies in the EU, but these issues are being solved. The main blockers of democratic reform so far has been the UK and some other member states. In either case, from the next EP elections (2014), the commission president will for example be selected from candidates laid out by the parliamentary groups before the election. In addition Barroso and others (e.g. the future group), have been pushing sweeping changes of the Union to guarantee power to the parliament. The lack of democracy at the EU level is solely the result of it being an intergovernmental organisation to some extent where the states have too much to say about things.

    --
    "Civis Europaeus sum!"
  8. roar... by slew · · Score: 1

    Somehow, when I read this headline about romania, the first thing that came to mind was the q-bomb...

  9. The Hulk! by Sigvatr · · Score: 1

    I think a Romanian Hulk reboot is exactly what Hollywood needs right now.

  10. Ode to Joy! by andersh · · Score: 1

    Hear, hear!

  11. Re:Why? by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 1

    An extremely powerful laser (well beyond this) would theoretically generate particles in it's path. Maybe they are hoping those particles can be combined into a shark.

    --
    Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.