The laser was used to study the physics of stellar interiors and fusion energy, among other things.
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I’ve fired one of America’s most powerful lasers—here’s what a shot day looks like
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MilanKraft
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
A brief but interesting look at a part of science most of us have only vague notions about.
Good to see the mandatory checks of various cameras, gizmotrons, and mission critical optics are done in the ramp-up to the shot. You never know when Son of Kent — sure, it's been about 40 years, but none of Kent-kind is to be trusted around laser labs — will smudge an optic to create chaos for personal gain.
Pretty amazing to think we can recreate what can be thought of as a tiny spot or sliver of a star inside the target chamber, if only for a fraction of a second. Also amazing... what people way smarter than me can infer from what seems like a minuscule amount of data. "Doin' the maths," as they say.
Good to see the mandatory checks of various cameras, gizmotrons, and mission critical optics are done in the ramp-up to the shot. You never know when Son of Kent — sure, it's been about 40 years, but none of Kent-kind is to be trusted around laser labs — will smudge an optic to create chaos for personal gain.
Pretty amazing to think we can recreate what can be thought of as a tiny spot or sliver of a star inside the target chamber, if only for a fraction of a second. Also amazing... what people way smarter than me can infer from what seems like a minuscule amount of data. "Doin' the maths," as they say.
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But how much popcorn can that laser produce? Enough to fill a house?
(Reference to the same movie.)
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I attended UT Austin in the 00’s and I went to one of the Wednesday Night Pizza talks where this laser was discussed at length. Most of the people attending just wanted the food and didn’t get the size of the numbers. A Petawatt is a large number. The duration, which is like a picosecond? That’s a small number.
What stuck with me was the description of how this energy affects matter. The example they gave was a test that shot the tip of a pen (I think - I’ve slept since then). The wording used was, “the electrons in the target are stripped away faster than the protons can react. On the atomic time-scale, it is balanced, then not, and that’s when dispersal starts.”
The energy is so strong it just strips away all the electrons before anything can react.
Of course, this leads to the fun reaction, as the target both comes from untogether and fuses.
Really impressive. Sad it’s shut down right now. Thanks for the article.
What stuck with me was the description of how this energy affects matter. The example they gave was a test that shot the tip of a pen (I think - I’ve slept since then). The wording used was, “the electrons in the target are stripped away faster than the protons can react. On the atomic time-scale, it is balanced, then not, and that’s when dispersal starts.”
The energy is so strong it just strips away all the electrons before anything can react.
Of course, this leads to the fun reaction, as the target both comes from untogether and fuses.
Really impressive. Sad it’s shut down right now. Thanks for the article.
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It seems everything is bigger in Texas, including the lasers and budget cuts. I’m surprised this was cut because of both the real world defense applications, and one of the subsystems in the golden moron’s Golden Dome fantasy are laser dazzlers and destroyers.
Edit to ablate excess words with a laser
Edit to ablate excess words with a laser
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I know Ars has (rightly) been castigated for LLM usage in writing articles, but what you quoted is a normal-ass sentence for anyone who's graduated with an English degree or has written for a while.
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It hurts to type this, but that may literally be the case. There was a hit on the word “diverse” and it got shut down.
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Mungus the Unhyphenated
Ars Tribunus Militum
So much this. I've seen how AI's tend to construct complex sentences; they're just parroting back all the grammar they've been trained on. They do tend to spit out grammatically complicated passages without much attention pacing and rhythm though. But too many people eager to pounce on suspected AI writing don't or won't notice and just randomly accuse writers who have a good college-level writing style.
Em-dashes aren't a guaranteed tell for AI writing.
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Mungus the Unhyphenated
Ars Tribunus Militum
It's worth viewing the original article which includes photos diagrams of some of the lab equipment. Better for visualizing what the author is describing.
It's also a travesty that science funding is falling short under the current Federal regime.
(Besides, we need to keep up if there's to be any hope of miniaturizing this laser technology to the point that we can fit it on sharks!
)
It's also a travesty that science funding is falling short under the current Federal regime.
(Besides, we need to keep up if there's to be any hope of miniaturizing this laser technology to the point that we can fit it on sharks!
)
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Enjoyed reading this article, thanks.
I found this line amusing, especially in the same paragraph as batteries so large they take up whole room on another floor.
I found this line amusing, especially in the same paragraph as batteries so large they take up whole room on another floor.
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Photon_plumber
Ars Tribunus Militum
It depends upon what the OD is of the safety glasses. On other matters, the amplifier section of this laser is what gives it both its alignment complexity and ultimate peak power. The OPO (oscillator) is very likely a tabletop , commercially available unit. Same with the first stage amp, a flash lamp-pumped rod system. It’s the last disk amp stage that’s special. And expensive. Blowing coatings here becomes problematic.
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Photon_plumber
Ars Tribunus Militum
Not batteries, capacitors. The description used doesn’t quite give proper credit to what they are and how they’re used. The need for a separate room is strictly a safety issue. There are no second mistakes if one accidentally contacts caps charged to those levels, among other safety concerns. Caps I’ve used in the past for pulsed lasers stood maybe just short of my hips and weighed almost as much as me. It’s quite easy to fill up a space with a bank of them, leaving enough room for inspection and maintenance.
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Those kinds of tests sound exactly like explosives or most rocket motor testing. Lots of prep, lots of checking to make sure that everything will go as planned. Then you push the button and in a few seconds or less, it's gone and done. You gather the data and go crunch the numbers.
Caveat: for some rocket motors, there will be longer testing but a lot of the testing will be short duration and/or small scale first.
It sounds impressive, it looks impressive when it's happening but to the people doing it, it becomes a lot of work before and after for a very short event.
Caveat: for some rocket motors, there will be longer testing but a lot of the testing will be short duration and/or small scale first.
It sounds impressive, it looks impressive when it's happening but to the people doing it, it becomes a lot of work before and after for a very short event.
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The deeply unpopular MD of a company I worked for came to see the demonstration of a prototype carbon dioxide laser. The guy who designed and built it thought H&S applied to other people and didn't even insulate the caps of the capacitor bank, relying on a "Danger high voltage" warning sign. This is early 1980s.
The said managing director decided to poke around while waiting and put his hand out towards one of the capacitor terminals. The Chief Engineer instinctively knocked his arm away. The MD stormed off (he would later sack the Chief Engineer.) As the MD slammed the outer door behind him, my boss said quite audibly "What did you do that for?"
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Not germane to the story, but in that same 17-floor building if you visit one of the side stairwells heading down toward the basement you will find a very hidden, out-of-the-way restroom that is inexplicably accessible only through the stairwell. Used to be a top spot for me for peace, quiet, and relief.
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I use em-dashes all the time—and I'm not the least bit "A." And the "I" is sometimes in doubt.
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Nora Lenderbee
Ars Tribunus Militum
It seems like just one speck of dust on some of the optical elements would cause a problem. I'm wondering how they keep 'em clean. Windex? 
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"for a brief instant, it carries more power than the entire US electrical grid."
I was initially puzzled by that as it seem like a lot of Joules (energy) but is clearly the power W (J/s.)
The link to the TPW web page has the energy as 140 J in a 140 fs (140×10 -15s) pulse which is 1015 W
I was initially puzzled by that as it seem like a lot of Joules (energy) but is clearly the power W (J/s.)
The link to the TPW web page has the energy as 140 J in a 140 fs (140×10 -15s) pulse which is 1015 W
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Various word processors automatically turn a normal dash into an em-dash.
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You'll never guess what ChatGPT is trained on, or as you put it, whose output it imitates.
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But...but...ThE eMdAsH!!!!111!!!
/s hopefully obviously, but I bet money that's what OP thinks is the tell.
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Actually, it’s highly unlikely that was written by AI because I believe it contains a small error. I think “at this stage” was supposed to be “after this stage”.
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If you are in the stall of that restroom and the writer of this article opens the door from the stairwell and asks "Is anyone in here?" DO NOT STAY QUIET.
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Whereas if it was actual AI it would contain a number of large ones?
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Agreed.
I have no particular skill at detecting AI-written articles, but this struck me as straight from the (human) heart. Some really affecting turns of phrase here, didn't strike me as AI at all. As always, YMMV.
Really enjoyable read!
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I sure hope they don't. A hyphen and an emdash have different grammatical purposes.
A hyphen joins words or word fragments, while an emdash sets off additional information or indicates a pause. Some word processors will turn a double hyphen into an emdash, but I haven't relied on that for years as on MacOS an emdash can be easily typed with "option-shift-hyphen" and on iOS you hold down the hyphen until a selection menu pops up giving you access to a variety of different dashes.
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MilanKraft
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Many people are saying a Petawatt laser could fill at least a dozen high school gymnasiums full of popcorn. But only if mounted in a B21 Raider. The B1 B does not have Petawatt laser receptacles.
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The main reason I despise AI is the fact that sooooooo many conversations end up being about whether or not AI was used that it completely obliterates the fact that we should be talking about a gigantic laser
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Is it coincidence that the top 2 articles in ars are Sharks and friggin' Lasers?
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Doubly miniaturized, since by the time it's done the Great Whites will have started to shrink so they can survive warming waters (see other article recently in Ars)It's worth viewing the original article which includes photos diagrams of some of the lab equipment. Better for visualizing what the author is describing.
It's also a travesty that science funding is falling short under the current Federal regime.
(Besides, we need to keep up if there's to be any hope of miniaturizing this laser technology to the point that we can fit it on sharks!
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