It can keep a car on the road, read a bar code, prevent blindness and entertain your cat. That is it? The laser. How is laser light different than regular light? Who invented lasers? How does a laser work? Here are some answers:
1. Who invented the laser, and when? According to http://www.laserinventor.com/bio.html, Theodore Maiman was the first person to demonstrate a working laser while working at the Hughes Research Laboratory in California.
2. Many people don’t know that the word “Laser” is an acronym. What does it stand for? At http://bitly.com/2GcWIav you learn that LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
3. Why does a cat chase a laser? At Petful http://bitly.com/2GizQ5B you learn that cats chase lasers because they think the little red dot is prey. And they can get frustrated because they never get the “catch.” The solution? Offer a lot of other types of toys for your cat. PS. It works with dogs and fathers, too.
4. How do Lasers work? At http://bitly.com/2pZ9kXV you learn that light is made up of photons, but laser light is special, because all the photons line up on the same wavelength; in sync. So the beam is concentrated. Most lasers use tiny red ruby crystals, which is the most laser beams are red
5. Where is the world’s strongest laser? Meet “Bivoj”– a 20 ton laser in the Czech Republic. It’s powerful beam is helping medical research and is being used to treat metals. Two other huge lasers are in Austin, Texas (one petawatt) and Osaka, Japan (two petawatt). Learn more at http://bitly.com/2pWuRRa
6. Is there such a thing as a laser light show artist? Absolutely. There’s an entire group of programmers and artists who make their living designing laser shows. Learn more at http://www.ilda.com, where you can also learn that the lasers in light shows and laser pointers can’t damage your eyes.
APPLICATION
Make a sound visualizer. Here’s an experiment you can do that shows you how to turn a small speaker and a laser pointer into a sound visualization system. Have a look at https://youtu.be/eA2CaK9TNBM
VIDEOS
Want more? Here’s a YouTube video playlist that go along with this column.
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