[Gargamel]

I figured you read Mapuc, but the reactions of the rest told me they missed the point.

Maybe it didn't load correctly for me (wonky connection today), so I missed some of the article, but I didn't see anything that led me to believe they would be able to create a laser able to deliver solar equivalent energies.

What I gleamed from it was they have found that they can create, on demand, IN THE LAB, a laser that when hitting gold, creates a particle/anti-particle reaction. This has led them to also see the possibilities of studying the sources of Gamma Ray Bursts, which are (aside from the big bang), the most energetic explosions in the universe.

The headline makes no sense to me, as it really doesn't even apply to the article. We have laws of thermodynamics, and E=mc2. So to get a laser that will produce the stated energy levels, we have to have the same amount of energy being inserted into the system. So we either need a laser capable of outputting that much energy, and we don't have a power source capable of making that much, not even close. Even if we did, we'd probably use it to solve most of the world's energy problems (only shortly) before weaponizing it. Secondly, if they are only using the laser as a catalyst to convert the target mass to pure energy, we'd still need a target of sufficient mass to equal that of an exploding star. And that would take a star.

Ignoring the fact that they have only been able to produce the matter/anti-matter reaction in gold, meaning our targets would have to be gold, the formula E=mc2 still applies. At 100% efficiency, converting the mass of a tank to energy would release A LOT of energy, but not even remotely close to supernova levels. And the fact it's antimatter doesn't mean a thing, it still has mass, and that mass has a finite amount of energy in it. Those types of reactions though do approach pure efficiency when converting mass to energy.