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The infamous laser that freezes?

JoeOh

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We all have seen that "laser" looking device that freezes people or things when shot at them. I know that lasers are "hot" only. But is there anyway for a laser to induce an endothermic reaction in the targeted material? I know that lasers tend to heat things up, but can that be reversed?

I think this would merit a Nobel prize for the person who figures this one out.

Ideas?
 





Benm

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Its not the same concept though.. lasers can be used to slow down ions at a small scale at cryogenic temperatures to begin with.

This does by no means imply that a 'freeze-ray' is a feasible concept - there is no laser out there that will quickly cool your sixpack, popsicle or nemesis ;)
 

Morgan

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Its not the same concept though.. lasers can be used to slow down ions at a small scale at cryogenic temperatures to begin with.

This does by no means imply that a 'freeze-ray' is a feasible concept - there is no laser out there that will quickly cool your sixpack, popsicle or nemesis ;)

:crackup::crackup::crackup:

Truly one of the most witty replies I've seen in a long time! Thanks.

M
:)
 

Lumify

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This does by no means imply that a 'freeze-ray' is a feasible concept

It's not a feasible concept yet. :) Who knows, in 30 years freeze rays may be as common as refrigerators. Refrigeration certainly wasn't feasible at one point. :rolleyes:
 
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It's not a feasible concept yet. :) Who knows, in 30 years freeze rays may be as common as refrigerators. Refrigeration certainly wasn't feasible at one point. :rolleyes:

yeah, too bad the world is gonna end in 2012... :crackup:
 

Morgan

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"Freeze Ray!", is more like the command I'd expect to hear from Highway patrol picking up the haggered face of Goodfellas star Mr Liota!

M
:)
 
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^ Loved that movie!
I'm sure the way to remove thermal energy with the application of coherent wave energy will become a reality in the distant future. But will it require long wavelengths or short wavelengths? Physicists?
 
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^ Loved that movie!
I'm sure the way to remove thermal energy with the application of coherent wave energy will become a reality in the distant future. But will it require long wavelengths or short wavelengths? Physicists?

You'd need a HUGE number of frequencies applied just right to create all the needed standing-wave effects to counter all the various almost random vibrations of all the different compounds molecules and atoms in your average macro-scale object and "freeze" it.

Laser refrigeration uses the fact that laser light is monochromatic and almost exactly one single frequency to "chill" one specific element/atom or compound that responds to that frequency.

An analogy of laser refrigeration is this: Think of an atom and it's electrons as a girl jumping rope. You can "chill" the girl by yanking her jumprope (the laser's frequency) at just the right time to rob it's swing of it's energy and stop her jumping. The small sample of a certain atom such as Cesium is like all girls of the same age, height, and weight, all swinging the exact same size jump rope, so the same timing of the tug will stop all of them from swinging/jumping.

Trying to apply this a macro complex object, like say a hunk of meat you want to "laser flash-freeze" would be like a playground field full of billions of girls jumping rope all of different sizes, weights, ages, with different size ropes all swinging them and jumping at different speeds. In fact, lots of the girls are jumping in huge lines "double dutch" style with two or more ropes.

Trying to apply a certain tug (the laser) will only stop a small number of the girls, if any at all. The vast majority of them will all just pick up energy from your timed tugging, jostle one another and all just get "hotter".

So it's not something that's likely to work in the future, ever, no matter how advanced technology gets.
 

Glitch

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However, the cooling technology might just be usable to counteract certain other "infeasible" technologies, such as Paul Brown's Resonant Nuclear Battery (a.k.a. the Nucell).

As I recall, the major obstacle standing in the way of achieving an inconcievable 7500W/gram of Strontium 90 was the fact that the battery would often melt, due to the overwhelming thermal output of the device.

If a laser-cooled atom were applied in close proximity to the device -or, better yet, an array of them surrounding it- wouldn't the tendancy of temperature equalization take over and chill the surrounding air particles, thus cooling the device in the center of the array?

Could this technology be applied to computers? We already know that superconductors work best at very low temperatures; perhaps the fan technology we use now could end up being laughable ten years forward?

I see many possibilities.
 




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