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We could build a solar lazer with a ton of mirrors
Submitted 1 day ago by possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 1 day ago
NachBarcelona@piefed.social 1 day ago
Light Amplification Through Ztimulated Emission of Radiation.
Lazer.
papalonian@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Look up “mythbusters solar death ray” I think you’ll enjoy it
GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 1 day ago
They did everything wrong in that video. On of their assertions was that soldiers wouldn’t be able to keep their mirrors properly polished. I don’t know about now, but even 40 years ago, polishing brass was a common punishment detail. I imagine it was moreso in Archimedes’ day, when brass and bronze were the thing to use. Also, there are techniques for using a signaling mirror to hit a specific location which aren’t that complicated, would certainly be something that Archimedes could figure out, and would work better for aligning the mirrors than “try really hard to aim at that spot.” The ridiculous assumptions they make besides those also detract from the goal of a best effort to test the heat ray, and seem to stem from the idea that people back then were stupider than we are rather than just not having accumulated as much knowledge as we had.
It was entertaining, but not as informative as I would have liked.
papalonian@lemmy.world 1 day ago
My bad, I forgot there were two episodes on this, I think maybe you only saw the first one or parts of it. There was a huge wooden structure with hundreds of mirrors arranged in a concave shape that almost perfectly aligned all mirrors’ reflections into one spot and absolutely nothing happened. Even with perfect mirrors and modern construction tools and techniques we couldn’t recreate it.
fuzzzerd@programming.dev 1 day ago
To be fair, they did build a customised rig to aim, using real mirrors to simulate a perfect case scenario, and still failed. While they did mention those issues, they did try to replicate the results pretty faithfully IMO.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Wasn’t that the plot of the Bond film Die Another Day?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 day ago
Also Man with the Golden Gun 😃
slazer2au@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Then there was Diamonds are Forever but with diamonds not mirrors.
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
You might enjoy this relevant “What If”.
ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I think his argument only holds for lenses.
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Read the “What if”, it is really interesting!
It explains why this holds for any optical system, including mirrors, showing it with a whole bunch of wildly different explanation approaches.
I even understood one or two of those… ;-)
spittingimage@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You trying to build a Nicoll-Dyson emitter? That’ll get you a visit from the galacti-cops.
klymilark@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol 1 day ago
There’s a solar farm type that is literally that. Thousands of mirrors focussed onto one photovoltaic cell.
teft@piefed.social 1 day ago
Laser light is collimated. Solar light is not since the sun is so close.
Tuscy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s why pedo musk is trying to do with his 1 mil satellites. He just needs a gold phantom of opera mask for half his face to complete his identity.
Etterra@discuss.online 1 day ago
Or maybe a fluffy white cat to pet while pretending to be menacing.
AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
And if you directed most of that beam away from the sun and a smaller portion toward the sun (to keep your beam splitter in place) you could move the whole solar system
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 1 day ago
Calm down Archimedes!
glups@piefed.social 1 day ago
The world should all agree that laser needs to be spelled with a Z. Lasers are cool, Zs are cool. It’s a s simple as that. The world could use this sort of unifying cause
7uWqKj@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Light Amplification by Zapping Emission of Radiation
Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
You spelled it with an S though… Maybe take a look in the mirror before judging others.
If you’re not brave enough to take part in changing the world, how can you expect others to do it for you?
Etterra@discuss.online 1 day ago
So you’ve been reading John Ringo books them?
GreatWhite_Shark_EarthAndBeingsRightsPerson@piefed.social 1 day ago
Okay…where is the rest of the post?
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Lasers are coherent, I think you need a lasing medium for that.
You could focus the light into a single point, sure, but that’s not really a laser in the technical sense.
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Not a point, but an area resembling an scaled image of the sun (if optimally focused).
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 1 day ago
They actually do this. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
TechieDamien@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Also, you can only get as hot as the photosphere due to the reversibility of light. We can get far hotter other ways, eg fusion plants.