EU Working On Most Powerful Laser Ever Built

kkleiner writes "On the coattails of CERN's success with the Large Hadron Collider, Europeans and the world at large have another grand science project to be excited about: the Extreme Light Infrastructure project to build the most powerful laser ever constructed. These lasers will be intense enough to perform electron dynamics experiments at very short time scales or venture into relativistic optics, opening up an entirely new field of physics for study. Additionally, the lasers could be combined to generate a super laser that would shoot into space, similar to the combined laser effect of the Death Star in the Star Wars trilogy, though the goal is to study particles in space, not annihilate planets."

Comments

What if we tried more power?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://what-if.xkcd.com/13/

Already featured

[CRCulver]

Slashdot has already featured at least one story recently about ELI. I can only assume that we're seeing this again because the possibility of shark jokes leads to more page views, which in turn generated more profits from advertising for this site's avarice-drunk proprietors.

Re:Already featured

[Razgorov Prikazka]

It will be either the 'sharks with frikkin lasers atached to their head'-jokes, or an accumulation of these people who thought that the LHC would produce micro-black-holes getting all excited about blowing something up. Turning from black hole alarmist to Death Star alarmists.
I wonder if these people are the same as the;
  - OMG the acidic rain will render the world uninhabitable! We must do something or we are all gonna die!
  - OMG the LHC will end the world with a man-made black hole! We must do something or we are all gonna die!
  - OMG they want to ship radio active waste to the moon! Think about the radiation! Think about the kids! We must do something or we are all gonna die!
  - OMG you drove a car today, according to these models, that will raise the sea level three feet by next Thursday you idiot! We must do something or we are all gonna die!
  - OMG the Mayan calender is going to finish us all! We must do something or we are all gonna die!
  - OMG they want to teach the kids Darwinism! We must do something or we are all gonna die!
  - OMG the Y2K bug! We must do something or we are all gonna die!
  - OMG Ponies!
These people somehow never get tired of running around, waving their arms in the air like an evil Dervish... Just like some people are never getting tired of sharks / beowulf clusters / does it run Linux / your anus jokes... No matter how funny / annoying (pick one) that is, it is less harmful than the alarmist. So, I would really rather have you picking at the alarmist :-)

Re:Already featured

[prefec2]

It will be either the 'sharks with frikkin lasers atached to their head'-jokes, or an accumulation of these people who thought that the LHC would produce micro-black-holes getting all excited about blowing something up. Turning from black hole alarmist to Death Star alarmists.
I wonder if these people are the same as the;

  - OMG the acidic rain will render the world uninhabitable! We must do something or we are all gonna die!

Well they said, acid rain destroys the forests. And it did. There was an significant increase in dead trees. The famous black forest became almost a no forest. So we did something about it and and now things are going to improve.

- OMG the LHC will end the world with a man-made black hole! We must do something or we are all gonna die!

That are definitely other people, because they did not have any proof at all. While in the previous version, trees could be counted and their health could be determined. the latter folks did not even provide a sound theory.

- OMG they want to ship radio active waste to the moon! Think about the radiation! Think about the kids! We must do something or we are all gonna die!

That sounds more like the first group. They calculated the risk to the ecosystem when a plutonium based reactor falls back to earth, breaks up in the atmosphere etc. However, shipping the waste to the moon or even into earth orbit is unbelievable expensive.

- OMG you drove a car today, according to these models, that will raise the sea level three feet by next Thursday you idiot! We must do something or we are all gonna die!

You seem to have trouble to categorize things correctly. If earth temperature rises. Or to be more precise. When we have more energy in the earth system, then that leads to more melted ice in Greenland and Antarctica. However, that will not rise the sea level today. It will affect your kids and their kids. They have to move New York or convert it into some Venice. The IPCC is definitely not an alarmist group.

- OMG the Mayan calender is going to finish us all! We must do something or we are all gonna die!

These guys are alarmists or even crazy. Simply because they have no proof. The only thing they have is a calendar, which ends after 6000 years. Well the world never ended when millions of calendars ended last year on December 31st. So why should that be different with that Mayan calendar. this is typical nonsense from people who have no insight into science.

- OMG they want to teach the kids Darwinism! We must do something or we are all gonna die!

Ah now you referring to Christian fundamentalists. As they oppose science, they fall in that alarmists group.

- OMG the Y2K bug! We must do something or we are all gonna die!

This was a marketing scheme (partly). However, if they had not fixed so many systems, it would have caused some trouble. But nothing serious.

- OMG Ponies!

Is this pony thing a dangerous event? I must have missed that. ;-)

If they are building it on the moon

[jd2112]

And referring to it as the "Alan Parsons" project then I'm all for it.

Which group?

[Sez Zero]

Which group is working on the Extreme Shark Project? And the Extreme Laser Forehead Mounting Project?

Enquiring evil minds want to know...

Re:there was a time,

[MyLongNickName]

Your logic is very bad. The US National Ignition Facility is currently the home of the most powerful laser. So, your demise of the US prediction is vastly overstated. Then you have the fact that it is okay for other governments to do great things to. It is called being part of a community instead of being a hermit. Other countries' accomplishments don't detract from ours,

Re:there was a time,

[somersault]

There was a time when the US didn't have such a nasty superiority complex. It didn't last that long though..

"The Goal"

[caspy7]

"...though the goal is to study particles in space, not annihilate planets."
*wink* *wink*
Ah yes, I hear you loud & clear scientists. You want to "study" "particles" in "space".
Just try not to leave the moon in too many pieces while you're studying it...

Re:not like the death star...

[HappyHead]

They could use it to carve their names on the moon.

Re:Common Sense Really

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Being that lasers travel at the speed of light, and we don't, we wouldn't hit anything that we could reach, really soon.

It might make a good Star Trek episode, though. The Enterprise gets zapped by a laser fired eons ago, by a civilization that no longer exists. When the crew warps on over to take a look, they just find a bunch of peaceful Cylons, or something.

And then the Captain gets it on with Number 6 . . .

Yeah, but...

[Jawnn]

...can it make popcorn?