They must be getting a bulk discount on stupidity over there.
Will emit a short laser burst with an intensity of 1023 watts per square centimetre
Due to be switched on by 2017, it will emit a short laser burst with an intensity of 1023 watts per square centimeter.
HAPLS is designed to ultimately generate a peak power greater than 1 petawatt (1015 or 1 quadrillion watts).
I guess the reporter or at least the person formatting this article didn't know that the superscript is important for conveying the value of this number. I am certain that 90% of the people who read this are just confused because they don't recognize scientific notation, or at least don't recognize scientific notation when not formatted correctly. Since this article is for a general audience anyway, they should never have used scientific notation, just bring out all the digits so normal people can get a sense of the scale of this number.
We made a cyanide as laser in the 60s, I cant remember the output power, but the input was 2Kv through a ballast resistor ( a massive bank of electric heater elements , ) and drawing 10 amps I think.
The output was a very small hole in the middle of the one mirror, 2mm ? or 1/30th of a square cm area, so 1023 watts per square cm doesn't sound much to me - and ours was continuous, not pulsed.
Boffin1:
We made a cyanide as laser in the 60s, I cant remember the output power, but the input was 2Kv through a ballast resistor ( a massive bank of electric heater elements , ) and drawing 10 amps I think.
The output was a very small hole in the middle of the one mirror, 2mm ? or 1/30th of a square cm area, so 1023 watts per square cm doesn't sound much to me - and ours was continuous, not pulsed.
I'm entirely certain they meant 1023 watts (10^23 watts) (10E23 watts), not 1023 watts. It's just the journalists had no idea what they were talking about exactly.
It's just the journalists had no idea what they were talking about exactly.
Yes the clue here are the words Daily Mail.
A news paper for rather stupid right wing bigots who's main obsession is with immigrants steeling our jobs and claiming unemployment benefit (you can't do both), with dividing the whole world in to two piles, those that give you cancer and those that cure cancer (many items are in both lists) and how The Duke of Edinburgh arranged the death of Lady Diana.
A typical Mail reader would have seen those numbers and translated them into to "very big" and "very very big" and them moved on to fume at the way the change in the law on gay marriage has caused God to bring flooding to an area of the country that is flat, close to sea level, and has had dredging of rivers cut back for years. ( I kid you not ).
Grumpy_Mike:
A news paper for rather stupid right wing bigots who's main obsession is with immigrants steeling our jobs and claiming unemployment benefit (you can't do both)
...
A typical Mail reader would have seen those numbers and translated them into to "very big" and "very very big" and them moved on to fume at the way the change in the law on gay marriage has caused God to bring flooding to an area of the country that is flat, close to sea level, and has had dredging of rivers cut back for years. ( I kid you not ).
JoeN:
I'm entirely certain they meant 1023 watts (10^23 watts) (10E23 watts), not 1023 watts. It's just the journalists had no idea what they were talking about exactly.
It's very easy for character sets and formatting to get screwed up in the shuffle between the source (ELI Beamlines?), the aggregator (Reuters / AP / etc.), the editor or journalist that checks it over, and the newspaper printing process. Right from the start you can see that ELI Beamlines is using Microsoft's bastardized Latin-1 character set (including "smart quotes") so the translation assuredly got a bad start early....but how a laser of one petawatt (1015) puts out 1023W per sq. cm. is over my head.
Grumpy_Mike:
...immigrants steeling our jobs...
I wish they'd spend more time on Chechloslovakians stealing our lasers. Or stealing your spellchecker.
( Sorry I lost the thread, forgot to set notify. )
Yes the clue here are the words Daily Mail.
Thats very true Mike, I guess you have seen the sketch with the song about it must be true, I saw it in the Daily Mail ?
I have a friend who often sends me articles from that rag, and she believes them . I look at it for a laugh sometimes ( OK and sometimes there are pictures of Cameron Diaz )