Posted on 02/01/2018 10:26:59 AM PST by blam
The Chinese are building a laser that is 10 trillion times more intense than the sun and could rip apart space. Physicists say that this laser could be operational as early as 2023.
Physicist Ruxin Li and colleagues are breaking records with the most powerful pulses of light the world has ever seen. At the heart of their laser, called the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF), is a single cylinder of titanium-doped sapphire about the width of a Frisbee. After kindling the light in the crystal and shunting it through a system of lenses and mirrors, the SULF distills it into pulses of mind-boggling power.
The end goal is to create a laser so powerful it can produce 100-petawatt laser pulses or 100 million billion watts. To put that number in context, thats 10,000 times the power of all the worlds electrical grids combined. These immense and powerful pulses could be targeted at incredible precise spots measuring just three micrometers across thats 2000 times less than the thickness of a standard pencil.
This means the researchers could achieve a laser intensity 10 trillion trillion times greater than the sunlight striking earth. According to the Science Mag, this laser would be so powerful it could rip apart empty space. Physicists hope to achieve a phenomenon known as breaking the vacuum, whereby electrons are torn away from positrons (their antimatter counterparts) in the empty vacuum of space.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at shtfplan.com ...
Quasar Found 420 Trillion Times Brighter Than Our Sun
“No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!”
Which they intend to use for engraving on grains of rice.
*raises hand*
"So you're telling me that this thing can produce 10,000X more power than you can possibly put into it?"
(math and physics are hard, I guess)
Must have one hell of a capacitor.
"You break it, you own it."
You cannot focus all that power unless you use super small wavelength laser. Meaning you either have to have a small nuke explosion generating gama ray laser or you criss cross beams resulting in phase changes into small wave length
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
I’ll look for the knockoff at Harbor Freight.
I think these scientists need to review a few definitions. They cant even get their orders of magnitude straight. SOunds like a 3rd grade science project.
You don’t put power into something. You put energy into it.
if you take a week putting energy into it at a constant rate, and use up half that power in one second, then the output power for that second is millions (I’m not doing the math) of times the power rate going in.
LoL! Perfect.
Technically ‘space’ is an empty vacuum.
What is the lazer-light gonna grab a hold of to do this ripping?
Ugh. Should be “Use up half of that energy in one second”.
That's what I thought when they were trying to create mini black holes with the super collider. They said the chance that a black hole would grow and swallow the earth was very, very, very small. However, the chance was not zero. And there was nothing practical to be gained, only knowledge of what things might have been like in a fraction of time after the big bang.
I'm a firm believer of looking at life on a risk vs. reward basis, and the reward is nothing but a few lines in a future textbook.
BTW, I just replaced my tag line with your line. :-)
It will burn steel like a demon but the switch will break after a month of use.
Then completely fail a week later.
As much as I knock HF, some of their stuff has held up rather well.
Ping
I think these scientists need to review a few definitions. They cant even get their orders of magnitude straight. SOunds like a 3rd grade science project.The problem here is the science journalists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.