New laser to rip apart space!

[Mkilbride]

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/04/new-laser-will.php

At peak power, the fourth laser in Europe's Extreme Light Infrastructure project (or ELI) will combine ten beams into a single pulse measuring 200 petawatts. 200 petawatts is significantly more power that our entire race generates at any given moment, and in fact more total power than Earth receives from the sun.

Ok, and why are we starting this thing that has a very high chance of killing us all?

 

[Avenger]

How would this kill us all? It's on for like a trillionth of a second.

 

[Skyrider]

Needless to say, this is not the type of laser that you just turn on and wave around for your cat to chase.

Made me laugh XD.

 

[Dokutayuu]

Considering how short the pulses are and how well contained it's likely to be, I don't feel terribly threatened. The results should be interesting, if I could actually understand them .

 

[Mkilbride]

How would it kill us all?!

What if a guy uses a spy glass on it? It could magnify it further and kill us all~

lol.

 

[Avenger]

I'm pretty sure you don't know how lasers or magnifying glasses work. Which makes me sad.

I will be able to understand some of its result, which pleases me. So we're in balance.

 

[Zeonix]

I hate you, MK.

 

[dutchmeat]

These replies are actually funny if you watch Fringe;

http://img827.imageshack.us/i/fringerules.jpg/

 

[harSens]

200 petawatts is significantly more power that our entire race generates at any given moment, and in fact more total power than Earth receives from the sun.

Neat. The actual energy of one pulse is less than the energy you'd get from drinking 1/10th of a glass of beer though (200*10^15*1.5*10^-14Ws = 3kJ).

 

[Sicron]

We had black hole creating colliders, and now we have a laser that can rip the space-time continuum?! I LOVE SCIENCE!

 

[Eon]

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/04/new-laser-will.php



Ok, and why are we starting this thing that has a very high chance of killing us all?

Yea these guys totally don't know what we're doing, they're just playing with dangerous machinery and writing down what happens.

 

[Zeonix]

Brilliant.

 

[Skyrider]

Yea these guys totally don't know what we're doing, they're just playing with dangerous machinery and writing down what happens.

I'm actually down to that

 

[Avenger]

I have no idea what "down to that" means in Skyrider context. Are you saying you agree?

 

[fuzzy]

Neat. The actual energy of one pulse is less than the energy you'd get from drinking 1/10th of a glass of beer though (200*10^15*1.5*10^-14Ws = 3kJ).

And now imagine you could drink the whole beer in 10^-14s! :shocked:
The universe would be destroyed instantly.