Effect producing laser

[Obeliskthdestroyer]

Are there any lasers that make effects happen? Heating things up will not count. My question is about lasers that can move objects or make sound or any other interesting effect.(eg. open portals, or cooling objects)

 

[Radim]

Yes, there are:
1) Moving objects - check Crookes radiometer (http://www.physics experiment.co.uk/content/crooks.html - copy and remove space between physics and experiment - it was censored because of s3x word ), you can use laser for that as well. Or you might google for optical tweezers - trapping and moving of microscopic objects.
2) Making sound - if you heat stuff with very high powers - this might produce sound - however it is caused by stuff hit evaporating (even if you hit your retina with high powered laser - DO NOT TRY IT IN ANY CASE YOU WILL BE BLINDED FOR LIFE - it is described you might hear a pop sound).
3) Opening portals - as well - check my artworks. (Link to LPF thread in my signature.)
4) Lasers are even used for cooling particles (e.g. doppler cooling).

But if you think something like light saber effects - lasers are completely different from this sci fi stuff - study them more here on LPF.

Interesting question (if you are not a troll).

 

[Obeliskthdestroyer]

Thank you i will check out the page you mentioned. I have not seen the sound producing laser or one that opens portals. I would be interested to see those.
But more than that a laser that builds elements using photon particles is what i am interested in. Possibly a water producing laser. If the tech doesn't exist there is likely something useful to be had.
@radim
Im familiar with lasers but id like to talk to someone that builds special lasers with different uses.
Eg. Incendiary laser:
(Fires hollow projectile filled with flammables, ignited by concussion+heat)
What useful laser applications have we not invented?

 

[CynicalBrad]

Thank you i will check out the page you mentioned. I have not seen the sound producing laser or one that opens portals. I would be interested to see those.
But more than that a laser that builds elements using photon particles is what i am interested in. Possibly a water producing laser. If the tech doesn't exist there is likely something useful to be had.
@radim
Im familiar with lasers but id like to talk to someone that builds special lasers with different uses.
Eg. Incendiary laser:
(Fires hollow projectile filled with flammables, ignited by concussion+heat)
What useful laser applications have we not invented?

I'm going to get my :tinfoil: and go with troll.

 

[Radim]

You are welcome. Really seeing from your answers - try to study lasers here on LPF - you will get a lot of understanding, why laser radiation (light, UV and IR mostly) is so unique and might get you better insights. Regarding sound producing - sound is made by mechanical waves in some matter enviroment (air, water, concrete, steel...), therefore laser needs to affect this environment somehow. For example if I hit with my 3.5 W blue laser a piece of wood, I can clearly hear "ssss" sound as water boils in it. And the portals it was mentioned more like allegory - through art lets say you might open portals in your mind.
Water producing laser? That seems a really kind of troll's question - but there exist water cutting machines - however these use high pressure water beam with some "sand" (or little metal balls or something like that) to cut, not lasers. Really get some knowledge about lasers, or you will be considered as trolling the forums.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Open portals! :thinking: Are you serious? Although it could be possible to open up black holes if we are able to generate enough high energy gamma photons.
As Radim has already beat me to it, I won't go into too much detail.
Rather than effects then, I will list some interesting applications.
Here are some cool things lasers can do:
Cooling
Propulsion
Ablation
Induced plasma channels
Ionisation
Weapons
Nuclear Fusion (In progress - NIF)
Tractor beam
Holograms
Bose-Einstein condensates
3D Scanning
3D Printing
Cutting
Welding

and the list could go on and on.

A thought experiment for you. When you fire a laser at a nearby wall, the photons travel towards the wall and then reflect back again and hit your eye. To you the laser take 2x/c to get back to you. But from the photons perspective, no time has passed. We have to presume that the photons are everywhere at once, therefore they have 'arrived' (I use that word loosely) at the wall and at your eye soon as you turned the laser on. The problem is information is limited in 4D spacetime to 'c' so we can never receive the information before the time it takes for the information to travel thus keeping spacetime in check. So if the photons were always already there, then the future outcomes must already be figured out leading to the possibility of parallel universes and extra dimensions. If all this can be derived from a simple laser being pointed at a wall, then I then I personally think that is the greatest effect of all IMO.

 

[Radim]

Nice list of applications, Oliver.

And remember - the "no time has passed" for photons is valid only in vacuum, not in matter enviroments due to lower speed of light.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Thanks Radim.
Well, be to be precise yes, 'virtually' no time has passed, but the photons have still existed in 'virtually' all locations. It definitely would count in the small proximity of a room.

 

[Radim]

And regarding black holes - like those considered to be created in particle accelerators (or lasers) - these would be microscopic and if they are big enough to radiate something (due Hawking's radiation), they will evaporate almost instantly. In all cases if they are microscopic they are harmless they would just fall in the centre of earth and settle there (if not evaporated before). If you do some math with famous E=mc^2 and calculate Schwarzschild's radius for some real laser powers - no way of creating something detecable. Schwarzschild's radius of our planet is not even 9 mm (if I'm not mistaken).

 

[CurtisOliver]

Yes the radius for the Earth is in fact 9mm (8.87mm). Oh, without a doubt. Laser generated black holes will be so tiny. And would probably would have to be detected with lasers.

Edit: Just thought you might find this interesting Radim. http://gizmodo.com/5958438/scientists-make-light-travel-infinitely-fast

 

[Radim]

I'm affraid not even lasers could detect it. Just consider wavelengths - they are astronomicaly large to size of atom and atom is astronomically large to size of these microscopic black holes. Maybe some extra super gamma "laser" would be able to emmit something like this, but really I cannot imagine real usable physical process of creating these short wavelengths. Even in particle accelerators (like the one in CERN) will detect it indirectly by missing energy from collision. And it is even not sure if that was black hole or some unknown particle not being detected.

To add to your list - LIGO lab interferometer uses laser as well - I think it is some kind of YAG. Why to mention it? Gravitational waves! Awesome phenomenon confirmed recently and extremely hard to detect.

 

[CurtisOliver]

I was thinking more in terms of slight gravitational distortions may in fact offer some way of detection. Probably not.
Yes, the LIGO is very important. Was it a YAG? I'll have to look it up. I'm glad we was able to confirm the existence of gravitation waves.

Edit: Correct again. Here you are https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0034/G030466/000/G030466-00.pdf

 

[Radim]

I was thinking more in terms of slight gravitational distortions may in fact offer some way of detection. Probably not.
Yes, the LIGO is very important. Was it a YAG? I'll have to look it up. I'm glad we was able to confirm the existence of gravitation waves.

Edit: Correct again. Here you are https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0034/G030466/000/G030466-00.pdf

Me too.

BTW: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/laser

Edit: Another reason why I love DPSS lasers. That feeling you are having the "same" laser in your collection is awesome.

 

[CurtisOliver]

I don't think you are a physics master, and u dont know of all the technology we have on earth. I really dont care what you think because the answers will be found eventually. Also if you are not answering my question (not blessing me with your glorious knowledge of what can and cannot be done) you can refrain from responding to me. You seem to be small minded and would rather focus on discouraging people than encouraging innovators. Yeah you might be a troll.
By the way if people like you could measure themselves by what they dont yet know they would probably know that it is impossible to describe something that does not exist. All things exist by definition

Excuse me! Sorry for trying to help!
I'm not here for arguments, and certainly am no troll myself.
At no point have I tried to be a 'physics master' and claim to know everything.
But you must know, that you are not going to be opening up portals anytime soon right? I would prefer it if you wasn't so rude with me in the future. My comment wasn't to offend, it was to question.

Anyway Radim, absolutely. DPSS lasers are amazing.

 

[CynicalBrad]

Curtis beat me to it.

I don't think you are a physics master, and u dont know of all the technology we have on earth. I really dont care what you think because the answers will be found eventually. Also if you are not answering my question (not blessing me with your glorious knowledge of what can and cannot be done) you can refrain from responding to me. You seem to be small minded and would rather focus on discouraging people than encouraging innovators. Yeah you might be a troll.
By the way if people like you could measure themselves by what they dont yet know they would probably know that it is impossible to describe something that does not exist. All things exist by definition

I fail to see a purpose to your attitude.

You asked a possibly legitimate question then followed up with a truckload of BS to the replies to it.

 

[Radim]

I don't think you are a physics master, and u dont know of all the technology we have on earth. I really dont care what you think because the answers will be found eventually. Also if you are not answering my question (not blessing me with your glorious knowledge of what can and cannot be done) you can refrain from responding to me. You seem to be small minded and would rather focus on discouraging people than encouraging innovators. Yeah you might be a troll.
By the way if people like you could measure themselves by what they dont yet know they would probably know that it is impossible to describe something that does not exist. All things exist by definition

Not sure to whom you are refering to, but I can ensure you Oliver is not small minded, he is actually exactly the oposite and not even troll. Anyway if you are not just passing by with a few posts and you wish to be a member, make your thread in Welcome forum to introduce yourself. We are currently having a lot of trolls here, so sometimes new members with let's say special questions have a hard times here. It's nothing personal.