all this Laser news stories!

[Triumph]

Aliens.

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: AtlantaBob
The guy in NJ was supposedly some kind of scientist playing with his kids on the back porch.

Now, not to sound cynical or anything, but calculating the odds of focusing a laser beam on the particular point in space that is an airplane at several thousand feet of altitude, and then TRACKING the thing, all the while maintaining the focus of the beam in the cockpit (an even smaller place) seems to put the odds against him. (We've got enginnering types here, anyone care to do the math?)

Granted, in a world with infinate monkeys, and infinate time, someone's going to produce the King James Bible... but how many people do you know playing with fairly powerful lasers on a regular basis?

I disagree with the monkey claim.

They would probably just hit S a lot.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: torpid

Originally posted by: AtlantaBob
The guy in NJ was supposedly some kind of scientist playing with his kids on the back porch.

Now, not to sound cynical or anything, but calculating the odds of focusing a laser beam on the particular point in space that is an airplane at several thousand feet of altitude, and then TRACKING the thing, all the while maintaining the focus of the beam in the cockpit (an even smaller place) seems to put the odds against him. (We've got enginnering types here, anyone care to do the math?)

Granted, in a world with infinate monkeys, and infinate time, someone's going to produce the King James Bible... but how many people do you know playing with fairly powerful lasers on a regular basis?

I disagree with the monkey claim.

They would probably just hit S a lot.

I disagree with the monkey claim as well... granted infinite monkeys and infinite time, but only the finite universe we live in, you've forgotten to give those monkeys an amount of ink which, in terms of probability, would more than likely fill the universe before the monkeys reproduced the King James Bible.



oh, and one other part: Yeah, I know of 3 people who play with powerful enough lasers on a regular basis 😀
Also, cool thing:
Find a round ring... A short piece of PVC or a PVC coupling or something would work great...
Put a piece of latex over the end, secured with a rubber band, kind of creating a drum.
Secure a small (3/4 inch by 3/4 inch) mirror to the center of the latex.
Put a bass speaker behind the latex
Aim a laser at the mirror.
Play music, with the bass speaker turned up - instant laser light show 😀
(Hmmm.... I wonder who plays with lasers?)

 

[ILikeStuff]

Sorry guys, i was just playing with my new barcode reader, won't happen again, I promise!

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: cjchaps
Up until last week, this place sold a green laser that could be seen for miles, and could burn holes in stuff. For instance, they had a vid of it burning a hole though a plastic cup.

They still do sell them, ya just gotta be nice 😉

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Yossarian
would it be possible to make laser-proof glass that still permits normal light to pass through?

Not really no. Laser light is just one frequency of regular visible light. You could make a filter that could block out that one frequency, but someone could just come along with a laser of a different frequency... (ie red laser vs. green laser)

 

[AtlantaBob]

I knew better to talk math/science with the real math guys 🙂
As far as the monkey's go, what if we let them store bits as the spin of electrons... (Actually, I just looked this up, kinda interesting link Text, and that wouldn't work either.) Drat.

And as far as the laser thing, Dr. Pizza--how many of you who are not getting your PhD's in science-related disciplines know people who play with lasers that powerful? 😉 (What is your field, by the way? I've seen lots of your excellent responses in Highly Technical). And as far as lining up the pencil goes, you're right, that's not all that hard. But taking into consideration the thinness of the laser beam, and the magnification of small jitters through the large distance that the beam is traveling through, and atmospheric conditions, etc, it would seem difficult to me (an extreme layman in these areas) to be very precise.

However, your point about the reemission of light is well taken, and may explain my problem in the previous paragraph.

It just seems kinda strange that all of the people with these things would decide that they want to track moving objects--or is there a kind of astronomical use of these things that I'm really missing here? Anyway, it also seems a little random for this all to happen at one time. It would be interesting to see how many similar reports occured before the media picked this up and terrorism becams such a buzz word (1999, 2000).

 

[ucdnam]

I have a green laser pen that I bought to use as a pointer in class, and it does leave a trail. I purchased a consumer model, so it's < 5mw or whatever the rating is. I've seen higher ratings sold online, so you could ideally buy one of those and point it into the sky. I know that my green laser goes quite a ways, is bright as heck, and leaves a trail.

 

[new2AMD]

They got someone doing it

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: new2AMD
They got someone doing it

Doesn't say what equipment he had.