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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Is an X-Ray emitting laser pointer possible?

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You are saying that you are 16 years old and have intentionally exposed yourself to X-Rays for the fun of it? Someone needs to have a word with your parents or guardian.


"Giedd and his colleagues found that in an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, the brain appeared to be growing again just before puberty. The prefrontal cortex sits just behind the forehead. It is particularly interesting to scientists because it acts as the CEO of the brain, controlling planning, working memory, organization, and modulating mood. As the prefrontal cortex matures, teenagers can reason better, develop more control over impulses and make judgments better. In fact, this part of the brain has been dubbed "the area of sober second thought."
"For even though the brain of a teenager between 13 and 18 is maturing, they are losing 1 percent of their gray matter every year"
From The Teen Brain Is A Work In Progress | Inside The Teenage Brain - PBS: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/work/adolescent.html
 
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Yeah, I've known this for years and it always comes to mind when a youngster exhibits poor judgement. But, this alone can't predict reckless behaviour. Some people never get over making poor judgements.
 

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Yeah, I've known this for years and it always comes to mind when a youngster exhibits poor judgement. But, this alone can't predict reckless behavior. Some people never get over making poor judgements.

No but it does point to a physical basis that corroborates the teenage years seeming to be almost a diseased state to adults---simply the brain is not fully developed undergoing major changes in capacities and capabilities.

March 2017 report see: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/teens-brains-are-wired-for-risky-behavior-study/
"Most parents of teenagers don’t need a study to tell them that adolescents are prone to being reckless. But new research confirms that teenage brains are actually wired to engage in risky behaviors.

However, researchers also found that context matters to whether or not adolescents actually engage in those behaviors.

The study, published in Developmental Science, looks at more than 5,000 teens and young adults from 11 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Researchers found that sensation seeking peaks around age 19 worldwide and then declines with age. In contrast, young adults’ ability to self-regulate or quash their impulses climbs until the age of 23 or 24 when it fully develops.

These findings can help explain both anecdotal and scientific evidence that risk-taking spikes during adolescence."
 
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Is it bad that I kind of want an xray laser just to see what it would do?
 
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Oh my. After reading this thread...I propose we have a Darwin Awards show at the end of the year. No way woyld I want to be exposed to Xrays or allow my kuds, if i had them, fool around with Xray equiptment. The idea of a porrtable xray machine is one thing, but to point the xrays at anything not sheilded and or backstopped is just plain irresponsable.
 
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I think most of us are in complete agreement here. What's next? Placing highly radioactive samples in a cage with small animals to see how much they suffer?
 
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Just for the record, I agree its a stupid idea. But part of me is curious what it would do to different materials in a safety controlled environment.

I have wanted to build a small low-power xray machine for doing xray photography, but thats definitely a project for later when I can afford to do it safely.
 
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Did you know during the beginning of the last century shoe salesmen had X-Ray machines to show how kid's feet fit in new shoes? A large population died from over exposure to X-Rays used as therapeutic gadgets. It isn't something to be trifled with.
 
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I would say X-ray laser is possible, but just too electrically hungry and huge to be useful to hobbyists, but let's say they make down to the semiconductor laser size, the energy bandgap makes it almost impractical (I would imagine it could ask for 18 - 22 Volts or so basing on III-V semiconductor bandgaps).

But having studied upon X-ray optical physics, it is kind of a bad news in itself, in partly because you will NEVER see the X-ray laser radiation, because it's obviously invisible unless it's in several hundred milliwatts or so, which then Oxygen would get excited enough to make laser light visible - it's not the visibility or lack of, it's also the Compton scattering you should be worried about (as X-ray laser radiation tend to be far worse than X-rays from the dentist tube). It also tend to cause damages much sooner owing to the property of the light (5mW green laser light can be seen as brighter than 5mW light from LED due to coherency of the emissions so localized heating can be magnified when the optical wattage goes up).

Lastly, optical setup is very difficult to deal with - you must be good at mathematics so you can predict where the light strikes, to achieve what is desired because mirrors and regular glass lens won't work at all (glass tend to be opaque in the X-ray wavelengths).

Nevertheless, having a desire to have X-ray laser is not exactly healthy. I originally wanted to build one until I figured out how much it will cost me (ie. pulsed discharge Argon / Helium callipary tube laser which tend to use very special capacitors which is also sometimes used in the larger multi-megawatts flashlamp-pumped Nd : YAG / Ruby lasers) so I dropped it. What you can't see is not something you want to use, especially when you start to smell the ozone when it gets turned on. Not to mention radiation shielding which tend to be both expensive and cumbersome.
 
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Did you know during the beginning of the last century shoe salesmen had X-Ray machines to show how kid's feet fit in new shoes? A large population died from over exposure to X-Rays used as therapeutic gadgets. It isn't something to be trifled with.

Oh yeah. Its definitely not something I would ever rush into without a complete understanding and plan for safety.

On the subject of not over exposing people to xrays, I broke my hand a while back, and they let me take my geiger counter in when I was getting xrays, and most impressively I didn't pick up and extra radiation outside the 6 inch square my hand was resting on. Very tightly controlled beam.
 
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Yes, and those X-Ray machines are extremely expensive to keep radiation to a minimum and not have it spilling out all over the place.
 
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I rather suspect this wasn't a serious thread from the very start guys, perhaps it could be, but doubt it. X-rays are too energetic to screw around with in a portable huck shaw, look what I got device.
 
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I rather suspect this wasn't a serious thread from the very start guys, perhaps it could be, but doubt it. X-rays are too energetic to screw around with in a portable huck shaw, look what I got device.

Exactly---dysfunctional daydreams at best
 
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The only reason high performance X-ray tube is so expensive is because of the optical engineering and metal work (Tungsten is kind of unforgivable when it comes to machining the metal itself) - focusing the generation of X-rays is best done with machined face of Anode target electrode, concavity and angle of the target face determine the emission quality and focusing of the X-rays, asides from the X-ray window optical management - the machine that uses rotating anode X-ray tube for very high X-rays output uses different approach of focusing the X-rays. X-rays have to be focused to small spot or otherwise specified for obvious safety reasons, and to also help with imaging quality.

The complexity of X-ray tubes is a marvel in science. No wonder they cost several grands brand new.
 

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Just for the record, I agree its a stupid idea. But part of me is curious what it would do to different materials in a safety controlled environment.

I have wanted to build a small low-power xray machine for doing xray photography, but thats definitely a project for later when I can afford to do it safely.
Just please don't smash it if something were to go wrong with it:eek:
I just had to Blarg:):):)
 
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