There were a few posts here about why blu-rays seems to burn better than red... I was playing w/ both last night. My blu-ray is ~100mw, and the red is ~300mw.
Blu-ray definitely burned almost as well as the red on most surfaces, and burned better than the red on some!
I could ignite white match heads w/ the blu-ray w/ ease. The red wouldn't touch them.
So, my first guess is that things absorb UV more than red.
2nd guess is that it has to do w/ the energy contained in higher frequencies. There's more energy contained in each photon.
(but them I'm not sure if there is a trade off. I'm no physicist, but I know a lot about electricity. I keep thinking about ohms law. You can have low volts, and high current, and it would kill you instantly. You could have another source of the exact same total power, but this time very high volts, low current, and the power would pass right over you w/out any damage. I guess it doesn't matter at all, other than to satisfy my curiosity, but is there a similar relationship in the EM spectrum when going from low frequencies to high frequencies?)
Oh, then another question... How the ___ do people light matches and pop balloons at a distance?? i couldn't get anything over about 5 feet, and I know the lasers are powerful enough! They both have meredith lenses, which people say are a little tougher to burn things w/.... but still. I couldn't even pop a black balloon about 10-15 feet away from me.
Blu-ray definitely burned almost as well as the red on most surfaces, and burned better than the red on some!
I could ignite white match heads w/ the blu-ray w/ ease. The red wouldn't touch them.
So, my first guess is that things absorb UV more than red.
2nd guess is that it has to do w/ the energy contained in higher frequencies. There's more energy contained in each photon.
(but them I'm not sure if there is a trade off. I'm no physicist, but I know a lot about electricity. I keep thinking about ohms law. You can have low volts, and high current, and it would kill you instantly. You could have another source of the exact same total power, but this time very high volts, low current, and the power would pass right over you w/out any damage. I guess it doesn't matter at all, other than to satisfy my curiosity, but is there a similar relationship in the EM spectrum when going from low frequencies to high frequencies?)
Oh, then another question... How the ___ do people light matches and pop balloons at a distance?? i couldn't get anything over about 5 feet, and I know the lasers are powerful enough! They both have meredith lenses, which people say are a little tougher to burn things w/.... but still. I couldn't even pop a black balloon about 10-15 feet away from me.
