[rikkir]

Sorry to be a pest, but the only Laser I’ve ever been in contact with is the one I use to torture the cats.

So, theoretically, if you wanted to take out a target at 60 yards, and then at 100 yards you would have to change the focus of the laser?

I see that my thought that this might be a reality one day seems to be misplaced. They evidently don’t work anything like I thought they did.

[central_va]

coherent light Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia. co`her´ent light n. 1. (Physics, Optics) Light in which the phases of all electromagnetic waves at each point on a line normal to the direction of the the beam are identical. Coherent light is usually monochromatic, and the most common source of such light for practical uses is from a laser.

In a vacuum coherent light would travel for ever. So a 1 second laser burst would be like a cylinder of light travel thru space and time forever. So range isn't really a problem. You can bounce lasers off of lunar reflectors put there by Apollo astronauts. The focus only concentrates the energy.

[drbuzzard]

No, if you could find a dense enough power source it would be possible.

I rather suspect batteries will never cut it, but something like a high temperature superconductor ring looping a lot of current which can be siphoned off using induction could make this happen.

Though I’m not really sure a laser would be the way to go personally. I think with that kind of energy source available you’re better off with a railgun.