Thread: can u tell me if my laser theory is correct?

Hi guys,

fact:if light passes through a certain type of lense, it will focus on a point and the heat of it will be slightly increased.

question: if u just take a normal light, and put like many lenses into a tube kinda thing( then u attach it to the beam of light) and if u focus the light enough will it burn through things?

Originally Posted by buzzhonk

Hi guys,

fact:if light passes through a certain type of lense, it will focus on a point and the heat of it will be slightly increased.

question: if u just take a normal light, and put like many lenses into a tube kinda thing( then u attach it to the beam of light) and if u focus the light enough will it burn through things?

Your fact is fiction. Think of rainfall, if you make a 1 Metre funnel which reduces to say 1cm you are not increasing the amount of rain you are concentrating it, same with light, no matter how many lenses you place in the tube it is only the energy striking the first one that will proceed down the tube. In fact adding subsequent lens will actually reduce the amount of light! The frequency of the energy is rather important as well, and the material constructing the lens. If you are thinking of making a laser out of a light bulb and magnifying glass - forget it, you might well succeed in burning something BUT it's range would be limited to the characteristics of the lens and it would certainly NOT be a laser. Look up how stuff works it should have a good explanation of LASER as opposed to COLBOL (Concentration Of Light By Optical Lens).

LASER is Light AMPLIFICATION by Simulated Emission of Radiation.

Self explanatory?

Indeed, but a good question was yours, nonetheless.

itll be like a death ray from the death star haha

maybe not laser by at least strong and powerful light?

It won't be laser because the amount of heat radiation content in that beam of light remains the same. To make ray of light act like a laser you need to change its wavelength. For example, visible light and Gamma rays are the same EM radiation but with different wavelengths

I see someone has been using sunlight to burn ants with a magnifing glass A laser works a little differently. A simple description goes something like this: Take a tube and place a mirror on each end facing each other. The mirrors have to be perfectly parallel to each other. When a light source is placed in the middle of the two, light goes in all directions, but a very small percentage of the light is emitted exactly perpendicular to the mirrors. These photons bounce back and forth between the mirrors. As more photons are emitted the more of them bounce back and forth between the mirrors and begin to collect. That's the LA part of lasers..light amplification. If you make a semi-reflective hole in one of the mirrors, it allows a thin stream of the photons to escape..that's how you get a nice straight laser beam. The SER part of laser stands for stimulated emission of radiation. As the photons are bouncing back and forth, some of them crash into energized atoms of the light source, and the collision causes even more photons to be released. (a simple explanation, I'm sure one of the smarter people on this board could describe it better)

Originally Posted by MacGyver1968

I see someone has been using sunlight to burn ants with a magnifing glass A laser works a little differently. A simple description goes something like this: Take a tube and place a mirror on each end facing each other. The mirrors have to be perfectly parallel to each other. When a light source is placed in the middle of the two, light goes in all directions, but a very small percentage of the light is emitted exactly perpendicular to the mirrors. These photons bounce back and forth between the mirrors. As more photons are emitted the more of them bounce back and forth between the mirrors and begin to collect. That's the LA part of lasers..light amplification. If you make a semi-reflective hole in one of the mirrors, it allows a thin stream of the photons to escape..that's how you get a nice straight laser beam. The SER part of laser stands for stimulated emission of radiation. As the photons are bouncing back and forth, some of them crash into energized atoms of the light source, and the collision causes even more photons to be released. (a simple explanation, I'm sure one of the smarter people on this board could describe it better)

It's pretty damn good - I'd only add that you need to fill the tube with gas (say a mixture of helium and neon) then subject this to an intense electric field which causes [some] of the electrons to absorb energy and move to a higher state, after a while this energy is lost by the emission of a photon, the emitted photons are the 'source' you mention. - that's it from memory - so be sure to check it out. You can also have MASER.

Originally Posted by CaveatLector

LASER is Light AMPLIFICATION by Simulated Emission of Radiation.

Self explanatory?

Indeed, but a good question was yours, nonetheless.

Correct spelling is quite important otherwise the meaning changes. For a second or two there, I thought, "What the hell? Simulated emission? That can't be right."

It could have been a computer generated laser!

Originally Posted by Trurl

Correct spelling is quite important otherwise the meaning changes. For a second or two there, I thought, "What the hell? Simulated emission? That can't be right."

Indeed.

Originally Posted by billco

It could have been a computer generated laser!

Smart ass.