We Could Have Lasers More Powerful Than Exploding Stars In Just 5 Years

[mapuc]

http://www.iflscience.com/physics/la...-earth-5-years

Mankind has always had a love affair with power: So what could more seductive than the world's most powerful laser, capable of releasing a beam that's comparable to the energy released as a star explodes?

Markus

[Jimbuna]

I wouldn't want to trust mankind with such a weapon.

[vienna]

Aw, c'mon, Jim, haven't you always wanted to have your very own personal "death ray"?...

On the serious side, it has been noted, in the history, of mankind, man has yet to produce a weapon he has not used against others...


<O>

[Betonov]

Human curse, human blessing.

We can never invent a tool that we won't be able to use as a weapon.
We can never invent a weapon that we won't be able to use as a tool.


And I like lasers as a weapon. Lasers can be used to shoot down ICBMs. Point weapons that could destroy a tanks engine without killing the crew. Low power lasers that could incapacitate the enemy without killing...

[danasan]

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita... "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.""

J. Robert Oppenheimer


Think about it...

[Lionclaw]

Perhaps we humans will eradicate ourselves one day.

There's certainly enough firepower in the world for that.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Lionclaw

Perhaps we humans will eradicate ourselves one day.

There's certainly enough firepower in the world for that.

I'm counting on the cowardise of world leaders to prevent that from happening.
Same cowardise means that people that would do somethign like that will be given a priority when getting rid of them.

We had the means to wipe ourselves off the planet for 70 years and we're still here.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by vienna

Aw, c'mon, Jim, haven't you always wanted to have your very own personal "death ray"?...

On the serious side, it has been noted, in the history, of mankind, man has yet to produce a weapon he has not used against others...


<O>

And that is precisely what crossed my mind just prior to posting

[vienna]

Great minds think alike...or, at least one of ours does...I'll let you decide which one...


<O>

[Gargamel]

Raise your hand if you actually read that article.....

OK thought so......

And that's the problem with click bait styled headlines. I love the IFLS site, but this one was a tad misleading.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Raise your hand if you actually read that article.....

OK thought so......

And that's the problem with click bait styled headlines. I love the IFLS site, but this one was a tad misleading.

I read it before posting it here.

The first sequence was somehow about if such thing was invented in the future.
The following sequences was about firing strong lasers toward gold.

I admit that I while reading, was thinking when will we read what the headlines said ? OK maybe it's because English isn't my native language I have misunderstood it. I'll post in General Topic and see what my friends say.

Markus

[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.

[Tango589]

STOP USING LOGIC TO SPOIL OUR FUN!!!!!

[Betonov]

I just assumed it was typical journalist ''error'' and they meant that the laser can heat up at the point as a supernova.

[danasan]

I quoted Oppenheimer, because it should raise one or two questions:

Would it really be a good idea to always try out what we as the mankind can think of / can ((in theory) (possibly)) do?

Is it always ethic to do so?

Nuking something with or without intention is one thing, but to unleash some power of even a larger scale than the atomic one , if it were possible, might be the ultimate destroyer of the world.