The Laser: A Light Fantastic (1967 Documentary)

[xoul]

Stumbled across this on youtube and it was certainly worth a watch. I had to cringe a little at the part where they intentionally cut a lesion in the monkey's retina.

THE LASER: A LIGHT FANTASTIC - 1967 Documentary - YouTube

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Interesting little short film.

I cracked up when the laser "eraser" was explained

 

[jimdt7]

Very interesting indeed !
Nice find !

Jim

 

[Mohrenberg]

or when he shows us "This little laser" which is a giant box on his desk!

 

[Haloid95]

Thanks for posting this, I learned a lot of things about lasers that i didn't know before. Its amazing how far we have come now.

 

[benmwv]

Interesting little short film.

I cracked up when the laser "eraser" was explained

or when he shows us "This little laser" which is a giant box on his desk!

I know! :crackup:

"it doesn't look very bright on you hand, but when you shine it in your eye it's pretty bright"

But, is it not dangerous to use high power ruby lasers with no eye protection (like that "eraser")? Or is the pulse to short to do anything

 

[xoul]

Interesting little short film.

I cracked up when the laser "eraser" was explained

I challenge the community to build a replica "laser eraser" like the one he demonstrated, but make sure it's small enough to fit in a typewriter.

Bonus points for actually installing one in a typewriter and make it activate off the delete key. :crackup:

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

or when he shows us "This little laser" which is a giant box on his desk!

Let's not forget the thick power cord.

I challenge the community to build a replica "laser eraser" like the one he demonstrated, but make sure it's small enough to fit in a typewriter.

Bonus points for actually installing one in a typewriter and make it activate off the delete key. :crackup:

Pass

I wonder what the guy would think if he knew people were waving around Watts of power now days.

 

[Sigurthr]

I love old documentaries like this!

Re: laser eraser; gotta remember that back in those days there was no white-out and no erasing ribbon on typewriters. If you were typing up an important document and made a mistake at the very end, you had to re-type the ENTIRE page.

It would be awesome to have a Ruby laser... so expensive though! Too bad it can't do CW or high frequency pulse rate.

 

[Cyparagon]

^It can do CW, but you need several pump watts (of argon I think) for <100mW output.