Posted on 11/01/2011 10:56:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A laser powerful enough to tear apart the fabric of space could be built in Britain as part major new scientific project that aims to answer some of the most fundamental questions about our universe.
Due to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider, the latest "big science" experiment being proposed by physicists will see the world's most powerful laser being constructed.
Capable of producing a beam of light so intense that it would be equivalent to the power received by the Earth from the sun focused onto a speck smaller than a tip of a pin, scientists claim it could allow them boil the very fabric of space – the vacuum.
Contrary to popular belief, a vacuum is not devoid of material but in fact fizzles with tiny mysterious particles that pop in and out of existence, but at speeds so fast that no one has been able to prove they exist.
The Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility would produce a laser so intense that scientists say it would allow them to reveal these particles for the first time by pulling this vacuum "fabric" apart.
They also believe it could even allow them to prove whether extra-dimensions exist.
"This laser will be 200 times more powerful than the most powerful lasers that currently exist," said Professor John Collier, a scientific leader for the ELI project and director of the Central Laser Facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, Oxfordshire.
"At this kind of intensity we start to get into unexplored territory as it is an area of physics that we have never been before."
The ELI Ultra-High Field laser is due to be complete by the end of the decade and will cost an estimated £1 billion.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Don't play with it, or you'll put your eye out.
We’re doomed!
How is Space supposed to keep its living room carpet clean if we tear apart its vacuum?
... and what if they don’t find anything? All that money will have been wasted; money that could have been used to feed starving children in Japan!
I’m stealing it from a post over the weekend on the same subject, but cannot resist: What a wonderful cat toy!
RE: money that could have been used to feed starving children in Japan!
_________________________
Weird “Al” Yankovich’s version of Michael Jackson’s BEAT IT (entitled EAT IT):
“How come you’re always such a fussy young man?
Don’t want no Captain Crunch, don’t want no Raisin Bran
Well, don’t you know that other kids are starving in Japan
So eat it, just eat it (prrr)”
REFRAIN:
Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it
If it’s gettin’ cold, reheat it
Have a big dinner, have a light snack
If you don’t like it you can’t send it back
Just eat it, eat it, (woohoo) eat it, eat it
Get yourself an egg and beat it (oh lord)
Have some more chicken,(woohoo) have some more pie (woohoo)
It doesn’t matter , it’s broiled or fried
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it
Don’t you make me repeat it (oh no)
Have a banana,(woohoo) have a whole bunch
It doesn’t matter what you had for lunch
Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it
Is this different than listening to Electric Light Orchestra while ultra high in a field? Or is this just code, because "the man" is always listening?
E. E. “Doc” smith would be proud.
Ravening gouts of raw energy ripping the fabric of space-time to release mysterious virtual particles...
So it opens a wormhole and sucks all those scientists into another part of the galaxy...
What could possibly go wrong?
okey dokey
how do they expect to get it to space? I hope they aren’t really planing on lighting it off from ground level. Earth’s atmosphere will eat up so much of the energy there may not be much left of the beam by the time it reaches space.
Oh now that’s just lovely. Exactly what we NEED! A hole in the time-space continuum.
Do you have ANY idea what kind of Tsouris that would cause?
Isaiah 34:4 - All the stars in the sky will be dissolved and the heavens rolled up like a scroll; all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree.
“Capable of producing a beam of light so intense that it would be equivalent to the power received by the Earth from the sun focused onto a speck smaller than a tip of a pin”
Guess these guys never head of a magnifying glass.
Space is going to need to have its vacuum in good working order if it's expected to clean up a mess of THAT magnitude.
Ground in figs leave a PERMANENT stain!
I highly doubt that this will tear a hole in space. Space can withstand a supernova which has GOT to put out more energy near the explosion point per cubic pico-meter than this so called “space riping” laser.
Or I am wrong and BOOM goodby universe, it could do something like lower the false vaccum point of the universe causing an explosion moving at the speed of light that will wipe out the universe.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.