Lasers happen to be light beams which are so powerful that they can slice through metal or zip out into the distance for several miles. As a matter of fact, these beams are one of the most versatile inventions of contemporary times. In our everyday life, we’re more or less surrounded by various types of laser applications. They are present in our smartphones, in barcode scanners, in children’s playthings, plus computer mice. At present, they’re also used for guiding missiles as well as in eye surgeries. In this article, we have mentioned 16 captivating facts about lasers.
1. The term “laser” actually stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.”
2. The most powerful laser on the planet has identical power as that of a hydrogen bomb.
3. Lasers have been categorized into different classes, from 1 to 5, depending on the various levels of danger. Upon reaching level 5, you might suffer burning skin as well as permanent blindness.
4. There was the “maser” before the discovery of laser which was the acronym for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. It was actually based on the principle of stimulated emission masers by Albert Einstein’s and was employed in atomic clocks.
5. Laser measuring is extremely accurate even more than that of a nanometer, which happens to be one billionth part of a meter.
6. A laser’s light is more parallel as compared to any other source of light; each component of the beam has nearly the same direction.
7. In spite of sounding rather ancient, “Gillette” was the measuring unit of the strength of early lasers which are actually the total number of razor blades a beam will be able to break through.
8. The most powerful laser was recorded in a Californian lab in the year 1996 and it was measured at 1.25 petawatts.
9. Using lasers makes it feasible to get sequencing info regarding DNA from a single molecule.
10. Lasers were employed commercially for the first time in the year 1974 and they were done so in the barcode scanners used in supermarkets.
11. In the year 1969 astronauts on the Apollo 11 space mission made use of a laser for measuring the distance between the moon and the Earth.
12. “Laser speckle” is the grainy appearance given off by a laser and this is the reason why you will find dark and light patches in a laser beam.
13. In the 1970s, the U.S. army used the laser tag as a non-lethal training program.
14. In spite of being hotter than the surface of the sun, some lasers can be utilized for cooling atoms in combination with a magnetic field.
15. A tiny beam of laser is able to etch a serial number onto diamond which is known to be the hardest natural substance on earth at present.
16. The Laser was first postulated by Albert Einstein. Einstein, when he was 16 years of age, performed a thought experiment. In that experiment, he imagined chasing a beam of light. This concept aided him to research and to write his Theory of Relativity in the year 1916. He also studied light’s quantum nature along with the photoelectric effect. This resulted in the foundation for the contemporary laser.