Can we make cool explosions with lasers yet?

June 4, 2004 4:36 PM

Can we do cool shit with lasers yet? This is a two-part question, actually: can the military blow up the moon with a laser by now? Or something like that? And are there consumer lasers that I could mount on my car and destroy things with?
posted by lbergstr to technology (36 comments total)

Surgeons use lasers to blast holes into people's hearts as an alternative to a bypass. That's pretty cool.
posted by Evstar at 4:47 PM on June 4, 2004

Yes and yes.
posted by The God Complex at 4:47 PM on June 4, 2004

They've also, I hear, been mounted on sharks, which is friggin' cool.
posted by The God Complex at 4:48 PM on June 4, 2004

Yes, the shark-mounted lasers are awesome - I hear the US Navy recently captured much of Atlantis using them as infantry.
posted by luriete at 4:50 PM on June 4, 2004

Yes, the shark-mounted lasers are awesome - I hear the US Navy recently captured much of Atlantis using them as infantry.

are you serious? that is so cool.
posted by Marquis at 4:52 PM on June 4, 2004

not Atlantis! nooooooo...

you could rig up a medical laser to your car battery i guess, and give people drive-by lasix ; >
posted by amberglow at 4:53 PM on June 4, 2004

It had to be done...the Atlanteans hate us because of our freedom.
posted by rushmc at 5:02 PM on June 4, 2004

THIS WAS A SERIOUS QUESTION RUSH HOUR IS BAD AROUND HERE NEED FIREPOWER K THX
posted by lbergstr at 5:13 PM on June 4, 2004

the Army has Frikkin' Lasers

Also, they like to call them Directed Energy Weapons, you'll get a lot more specific hits on that.
posted by milovoo at 5:28 PM on June 4, 2004

Well, if your car is a 747 or a really big truck, then yeah, you can blow things up.

Um... not the moon, though.
posted by whatnotever at 5:28 PM on June 4, 2004

Um... not the moon, though.

So lame. Are we sure it's 2004?
posted by lbergstr at 5:34 PM on June 4, 2004

Wait a tic -- if you guys are playing with frickin' lasers, then WHERE'S MY JETPACK?
posted by davidmsc at 5:36 PM on June 4, 2004

Dentists now use them in conjunction with water to perform root canals. Check out this stock: BLTI - Biolase Technologie
posted by vito90 at 6:08 PM on June 4, 2004

You can also user lasers to build way-cool listening devices!
posted by falconred at 6:33 PM on June 4, 2004

Not really, you're dealing with some complexities. The last article I read about military lasers had the thing housed in its own 747 and was being used to shoot down missiles.

On the commercial end of things, green lasers are cheap and super-bright. You can pick one up at thinkgeek.com.
posted by skallas at 7:18 PM on June 4, 2004

you can really freak people out with a laser pointer...
posted by grimley at 7:20 PM on June 4, 2004

Everyone knows if you're going to blow up the moon, you need to use a monkey. Just make sure the monkey doesn't ask any questions.
posted by Gortuk at 7:29 PM on June 4, 2004

On a less obscure note, laser pointers make great cat toys.
posted by Gortuk at 7:32 PM on June 4, 2004

"shark-mounted lasers"

Ok, where is a link for this? Preferably with a photo or at least an artist's rendering? Not that I don't believe, no I'm thinking of building my own shark harness for a device and I need a better idea of how to do this...
posted by batgrlHG at 7:44 PM on June 4, 2004

Gortuk: indeed. especially when filtered through a glass of water. Really freaks then out.
posted by grimley at 7:46 PM on June 4, 2004

You can't yet blow up the moon, but you can carve "CHA" into it, according to a documentary I saw once.
posted by Guy Smiley at 7:56 PM on June 4, 2004

They've also, I hear, been mounted on sharks, which is friggin' cool.

Are you sure? Because I've heard that sharks have been put on the endangered species list.
posted by alidarbac at 8:05 PM on June 4, 2004

OK, Lukas is officially the funniest person in the world. In years and years of metafilter I've never yet laughed so loud, so long or so hard. heheheeheheheheheheheheheheh kthxbi
posted by bonaldi at 8:54 PM on June 4, 2004

I have a friend in Wellington with several 1500W lasers. They can indeed set things on fire. But they can only vaporise very small things, such as your retinas.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:18 PM on June 4, 2004

Fill an enemy's house with a billion popcorn kernels, cover with foil, point a powerful laser at the house, and then sit back and watch hilarity begin!
posted by gluechunk at 10:27 PM on June 4, 2004

Lasers destroy things by raising their temperature to ignition or melting point. The mass of the moon is about 7.35e22 kg. Its melting point is about 1000 degrees C vs. an average surface temperature of -23 degrees C. I don't know the specific heat of moon rock, but it takes 4.18 joules to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree C. If moon rock had the same specific heat as water, it would take something like 3.0e29 joules to melt the moon.

The Petawatt laser at Lawrence Livermore once hit 1.25 petawatts (petawatt = 10e15 watts). Although that represented more than 1000 times the entire power output of the US at the time, the shot only lasted half a trillionth of a second. Total energy output was about 600 joules. The moon is safe for now.

OTOH, you can destroy things with much less energy. We had a couple of UV (beams were invisible) lasers in college. Our professor would bend over the laser to make an adjustment, his tie would flop down into the beam, hilarity would ensue.
posted by joaquim at 12:30 AM on June 5, 2004

The gyrosphere.
posted by bingo at 9:40 AM on June 5, 2004

How many joules would it take to pop enough popcorn to fill said professor's house up?
posted by alphanerd at 9:49 AM on June 5, 2004

1.21 gigawatts
posted by reverendX at 10:31 AM on June 5, 2004

Everyone knows if you're going to blow up the moon, you need to use a monkey. Just make sure the monkey doesn't ask any questions.

And do it during a full moon, to make sure you get it all.
posted by ALongDecember at 11:46 AM on June 5, 2004

The moon is safe for now.

Thank goodness, Joaquim! Our women depend upon it.
posted by billsaysthis at 11:54 AM on June 5, 2004

Hey, if he gets destructo beams I demand GIANT KILLER GAY ROBOTS ENGAGING IN GAY RADAR SEX.

"Optimus! I'm having... feelings!"

"UNF!" *clang* "UNF!" *clang* "UNF!" *clang*
posted by loquacious at 12:01 PM on June 5, 2004

Damn it, Kent! How could you build that target-tracking system?
posted by bingo at 12:35 PM on June 5, 2004

AskMe: GIANT KILLER GAY ROBOTS ENGAGING IN GAY RADARLASER SEX
posted by amberglow at 1:48 PM on June 5, 2004

The problem isn't the laser, it's the power source. Before you can get a real laser sidearm there's going to have to be some serious progress in batteries (or hand-sized mini fusion reactors, or whatever.) Until that happens, John Carter of Mars continues to have to depend on his sword. (Which he did anyway, one adds.)
posted by jfuller at 6:42 AM on June 6, 2004

wtf?
posted by yoga at 7:16 AM on June 6, 2004