Scientists plan $1.5bn laser strong enough 'to tear the fabric of space'

Next thing you'll hear is that they plan on testing this out on December 21, 2012. The end is among us.

 

to think people complained about the fuel consumption of hummers

 

Now how will they attach said laser to the head of a frickin shark?

 

Still wouldn't stop her...

 

So..................what was this thread about, again?

 

The idea of discovering another dimension is just mindblowing.
I want to live to see that day.

 

That's what I immediately thought. But, the article says the 200 PW of power is only used for 1 trillionth of a second.

That equals a mere .05556 kWh of energy consumption; (see my spoiler for the math).

Laser experts, help us here:
Do these pulse lasers that can fire for a few femtoseconds (1 trillionth second), waste a lot of energy to generate that pulse? Or do they have to fire for a longer time prior to being focused to a tiny point (as the article says)?

For each tenth of a second that 200 PWs is used, that is around $10 million of consumption.

Spoiler

Code:

1 petawatt = 10E+15 watts
200 PW = 2E+17 watts
2E+17 w times 1 kW/1000 w = 2E+14 kW

so, [B]2E+14 kilowatts[/B] of powers is used 

1/1,000,000,000,000 seconds = 1E+12 seconds
0.000277778 hours are in a second
sec times hours/sec = hours

so, [B]2.77778E-16[/B] hours is length of time the 200 PWs are used

Energy = power * time

so,

2E+14 kilowatts X 2.77778E-16 = [B]5.555556E-02 kWhs[/B]

 

Gotta love those alarmist headlines, anything to frighten the public and generate hits.

 

Seems like they're skipping a few steps. What can we do with Lasers now? Track a computer mouse movement, aid in powerpoint presentations... and.... let's see... there's lasertag....What's next? SHOOT A HOLE IN SPACE LOOKING FOR THE NEXT DIMENSION!!!

Seriously, didn't they leave out the part where lasers do something a little more .... I don't know.... laserish?

 

But what about the terr'sts? Use it on them?

 

Leaked pic of core powering up:

Spoiler

 

So everything stated in the article before this is basically a guess?

Nice.

 

I love how the article ends with "The intensity of the beam is so powerful and will produce such extreme conditions, that do not even exist in the center of the sun." As if the center of the Sun would be extraordinary in any way, astrophysically speaking.

And what's up with this: "Scientists say it will be so powerful they will be able to boil the very fabric of space and create a vacuum." Vacuum is empty space, not absence of space.

Also funny how the single quote doesn't even come close to supporting the sensationalism of the article.

 

What could possibly go wrong?

Actually, what I'm more impressed with is the battery they're going to use to store up all this energy to fire the laser in the first place.

 

i'd like some physicists to chime in on this; the energy required to do 200 PW for a trillionth of a second is a fraction of a kWh--pennies. Or my math is wrong in my previous post.

So, obviously,these lasers have to fire for longer before they can be narrowed to a tiny spot...each tenth of a second at 200 PW is roughly $11 million (at wholesale kWh prices--$.02). Plus, I think pulse lasers can do 100 PW in a femtoseconds of energy already, but just not focused on a very small point.

My guess is the battery technology is not an issue, since 100 PW lasers already exist. Also, containing the unknown once it happens is probably a huge expense.

 

Lasers are so uncivilized.