Puntabulous

Teach Me Something Tuesday #8

LASERS

Today I’m going to talk about LASERs. Why am I writing LASERs like that? Because LASER is an acronym for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”. So writing “Lasers” is just plain silly because “Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiations” makes no sense. The first working LASER was made in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman who was working at the Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, which is the best thing to come out of Malibu since Hannah Montana. Wait, you mean Hannah Montana came after the laser? And she posed for Vanity Fair like that? Oh my. Has someone informed the media of this?

To understand how a LASER works, you just need to follow the words of the acronym. A Light that is intensely Amplified is created when atoms are Stimulated and Emit photons, which is a form of Radiation. Wait, you still have no idea how a LASER works. I have failed. But I’m willing to accept that fact because LASERs are like, totally complicated and I can only do so much in the time alloted to me (there’s also that little fact that I don’t really understand them myself). How about this:

When the LASER was invented, it was referred to as “a solution looking for a problem” because they were like “Yay! We did it! Now what do we do with it?” Today, LASERs have a wide range of uses including guiding viewers’ eyes during a presentation, shining them in peoples’ eyes in crowded high school hallways, and picking actors’ noses at movie theaters. They also have useful uses. Now that I think of it, can a use be unuseful? Is that like an oxymoron or something? What? “Unuseful” isn’t a word? I guess that means nothing can be deemed unuseful. Sounds like Nicolas Cage still gets to make movies.

The idea for LASERs-as-weapons stems all the way back to the Greek god Zeus and his lightning bolts. There is also the legend that the Greek mathematician Archimedes created a mirror with an adjustable focus length that could be used to focus sunlight and set fire to invading ships. That’s kinda like a laser gun right? The laser gun as we know it today gained popularity in H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds which was published in 1898. It will still be a while before I can own my very own laser gun because the energy supply needed to power one is too large to be feasible. One of these days Nic. One of these days.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.

TEACH ME | Craig | May 20, 2008 5:21 am

26 Comments

By mjohnson, May 20, 2008 @ 5:40 am

I can’t find the link right now, but I did see a short instruction video in which a guy replaced the lens piece (not sure what the correct word is) in a laser pointer with the lens piece from the laser in a DVD burner. This made the LASER so powerful it could burst balloons! Burst balloons, do you hear me, with this kind of power no one will be able to stop us!!
By Manager Mom, May 20, 2008 @ 6:17 am

You forget about the LASER’s miraculous abilites to get rid of unwanted body hair, and to burn off the wrinkles.
By Craig, May 20, 2008 @ 6:30 am

Manager Mom: When reading your comment I couldn’t help but think: “Does Dina Lohan read my blog?” You’re totally cooler than Dina though.
By Îž_Heather, May 20, 2008 @ 7:14 am

Well Dina SHOULD!

The longest palindromic word in everyday use is saippuakivikauppias, which is Finnish for soap-stone vendor.

(Everyday use? I’ve read this in a couple sources, but really, when was the last time you had to call your local soap stone vendor?)
By john, May 20, 2008 @ 7:55 am

Yay geeky knowledge!

3. The antibacterial ingredients in antibacterial soaps needs to be left on a surface for about two minutes in order to work. Most people are not this patient, and end up washing off the soap before the antibacterial ingredients can do their job.
By polt, May 20, 2008 @ 8:23 am

I don’t know much about all this science stuff, I was a Political Science major in college.

However, I DO know that a feather can be used to stimulate a different sort of tube to get a different sort of release.

Not that I speak from personal experience or anything.

HUGS…
By Joe, May 20, 2008 @ 9:53 am

Did you know that laser are part of the magic that is Coca Cola. Here’s me at the coke museum next to the laser coders.

http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f130/psyczo/?action=view&current=IMG_1196.jpg
By FDot, May 20, 2008 @ 9:58 am

You appear to have some massive hatred of Nicolas Cage in your system. Which movie of his did it for you?

I can piggyback on LASERS here:

The three largest US military expenses of the twentieth century were World War II, the Vietnam War, and President Reagan’s aborted Star Wars (SDI) initiative. Reagan’s program, later cancelled, gave US military researchers billions of dollars to spend on developing new weapons systems. Some of these projects survive to the present day, though public information on them is sketchy, at best.

A good example is MIRACL, Mid-Infra-Red Advanced Chemical Laser. MIRACL is the highest power chemical laser known to exist in the world. Developed and operated by the US Army, it can lock in a target and fire an infrared laser beam up to 6 feet wide that can travel for miles. The beam’s power is adjustable, and can be increased or decreased in order to disable the electronics of a target without destroying the target itself. For this reason, the US military sees MIRACL as its secret weapon against enemy satellites.

MIRACL’s beams of light, which issue from a US Army base at White Sands, New Mexico, are seen by some as a protective shield against satellites.

In 1997, a test conducted by the US Army, disabled a US Air Force satellite, which has given rise to concerns that the US is developing the ability to attack, as well as defend, any satellite in space.
By Antonio, May 20, 2008 @ 10:07 am

Thanks for the LASER primer, Craig. Now, about attaching these to the heads of sharks…
By David, May 20, 2008 @ 10:22 am

Today’s fun fact:

You may turn up your nose at soy milk, soy cheese and tofu, but 75% of the vegetable oils in the typical American diet come from soy, including soy oil used in mayonnaise (regular mayo, not some tree-hugging brand) the oil that your french fries are prepared in, soy emulsifiers in ice cream and chocolate, and chickens fed with soy (also known as “soy with feathers” in certain agricultural circles).

Polt’s comment totally made me horny.
By Jere, May 20, 2008 @ 11:59 am

None of that explains how several LASERs can be pointed at each other to become one huge world destroying LASER. I realize such LASERs would have to be fairly massive, or at least have a very large power source, like a small planet or star… a star of death.

Some other common words that are really acronyms: SCUBA: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus; RADAR: RAdio Detection And Ranging; ZIP (code): Zone Improvement Plan; and SNAFU: Systems Normal, All Fouled Up (or All F***ed Up, depending on who you ask).
By sue, May 20, 2008 @ 2:04 pm

In Wisconsin, drinking fountains are called bubblers and Milwaukee is pronounced Mwaukee. Mwaukee actually has a giant laser pointed at Chicago because they fear an invasion. It’s true, really.
By Josh, May 20, 2008 @ 2:30 pm

Well heres something that i just found out
The internet’s on computers now

if you don’t get where that’s from oh well…i’m laughing in my head
By Craig, May 20, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

Josh: The Simpsons!
By Robbert, May 20, 2008 @ 2:41 pm

Have you ever just lased around the house all day?

And by “lased,” of course, I mean “emitted concentrated streams of photons.”
By Alden, May 20, 2008 @ 5:19 pm

Wait, are you actually that guy from Real Genius? Do you have a secret lair in your closet?
By Adam, May 20, 2008 @ 7:59 pm

Here is something you don’t know:

TEACH ME SOMETHING TUESDAY is boring!!!!

There, I said it…It’s been 8 weeks…Let it go!!!

Tuesdays have become a black hole for hundreds of Puntabulous readers everywhere. These people are just being polite but I am your brother so I don’t have to be polite. No more TEACH ME SOMETHING TUESDAYS!!!

Love,
Adam

PS: Battlestar Galactica LOL Cats suck too!!! I have not LOL’ed once.
By Craig, May 20, 2008 @ 8:09 pm

Wait, so let me get this straight: You don’t like Teach Me Something Tuesdays?
By brad, May 20, 2008 @ 8:17 pm

I support teach me something tuesdays, but agree about the battlestar gallactica LOL cats. no LOL on this end.
By Ryan, May 20, 2008 @ 8:19 pm

This allows you to simulate a laser:

http://phet.colorado.edu/new/simulations/sims.php?sim=Lasers

It even allows you to blow it up if you make it too powerful.

However, Electric Field Hockey is probably the most fun simulation they have:

http://phet.colorado.edu/new/simulations/sims.php?sim=Electric_Field_Hockey
By NefariousCarrot, May 20, 2008 @ 8:21 pm

Actually, written out completely, LASERs stands for “Light Amplifications by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.” I know, it sounds a bit odd, because its LASERs, not LAsSER, but that’s how acronyms are pluralized. The “by Stimulated Emission of Radiation” part is just modifying the noun part, which you can pluralize without a problem.
By NefariousCarrot, May 20, 2008 @ 8:22 pm

Ahahah, it’s, not its.
By Craig, May 20, 2008 @ 8:25 pm

Sorry BSG LOLCats aren’t universally liked. But The Underwire sent thousands of readers to see them, and they continue to pop on message boards and blogs, so they must be kinda good.

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/04/battlestar-ga-1.html
By john, May 20, 2008 @ 11:04 pm

You can’t trust everything a man says:

“I’m 5’9″.” (he’s 5’6″)
“Of course I’ll respect you in the morning.” (no he won’t)
“Teach me something Tuesday is boring.”(no it isn’t – with all due respect to the family)
and in the case of Super Viagra:
“I’ve never done this before.” (yes he has)

Oh and BSG LOLCats is pretty funny too.
By Angel, May 21, 2008 @ 3:49 pm

Stimulated emission was a vocabulary word in my physics book in high school. I laughed every time I saw it. I kind of chuckled typing it just now.

And I love Teach Me Something Tuesdays, Craig. The BSG LOLCats not so much, but I don’t watch BSG so that’s probably got something to do with it.
By Tony P, June 3, 2008 @ 2:14 pm

The LASER has been a boon to the communication medium we’re using now. You could squeeze many more connections into a fiber than you could copper, so most of the net traffic from node to node is fiber. To the curb it’s brought in as coaxial though since that has pretty good bandwidth too.

If you want to cover another how it works try the MASER. It’s the reason 802.11G, DECT, CDMA, TDMA, etc. all work.