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ZEUS – A new two-petawatt laser facility at the University of Michigan

(news.engin.umich.edu)
126 points voxadam | 3 comments | 21 May 25 15:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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megous ◴[21 May 25 17:49 UTC] No.44054142[source]▶
I don't think anyone should be impressed by watts. Jouls are where all the real work is.

Asside for the PR article. What's the use case for pettawatt laser pulse lasting 25 quintillionths of a second?

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1. frollogaston ◴[21 May 25 18:37 UTC] No.44054682[source]▶
Well you probably don't want a petawatt laser lasting a second, cause it'll obliterate a lot more than what you wanted to.
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2. ta1243 ◴[21 May 25 20:31 UTC] No.44056009[source]▶
Including of course the laser. It's about 240 kilotons of TNT, or over 10 times the power of the nagasaki or hiroshmia bombs.
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3. frollogaston ◴[21 May 25 20:52 UTC] No.44056210[source]▶
Yeah, or even if it were some more reasonable amount of energy that doesn't self-destruct it, there are probably applications where you want to hit a small area quickly without burning things around it.