Just two months prior, we all stood in awe of the mighty
HERCULES laser housed at the University of Michigan. Now, however, those 300 terawatts of power look mighty puny compared to the one petawatt potential claimed by the Texas Petawatt. Hailed as "the highest powered laser in the world" by Todd Ditmire, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin, the device has the "power output of more than 2,000 times the output of all power plants in the United States," and in case that wasn't impressive enough, it's also "brighter than sunlight on the surface of the sun" -- but alas, only for a tenth of a trillionth of a second. Aside from totally ganking the geeky gloating rights from the Wolverines, the Longhorns will use the laser to study astronomical phenomena in miniature (and probably take over the world in short order).
[Via
Physorg, image courtesy of
University of Texas at Austin]
posted Apr 8th 2008 9:19AM
me want
...to aim at Ronaldo when he's in front of goal?
honeycomb?
Hook 'em horns!
"1.21 Petawatts!?!?...Great scott! .....What the hell is a Petawatt??!?!"
...all of the above
lol one of my professor talked about this and thought about taking a field trip during lecture to visit the laser a while I was still an engineering undergrad an year or so ago.
hook'em
First comment! they can use the laser to blow up Michigan since im an Ohio State Fan
Fail x 3
Not even close.
i meant MY first comment not THE first comment.
hm! shocking you can read.
Oh jesus, don't start a trend of people saying "my first comment"... I didn't think it could get any worse, until now.
Long time reader, first time commenter here; I just love your show...
I so agree with blowing up Ohio State though...
Hook 'em.
now.
I guess everything IS bigger in Texas...
But can it play Crysis?
No, but it could cause a crisis.
Acerguy that doesn't even make sense. This thing might hook up to a computer that can play crysis but this is a laser. It more closely resembles a flashlight than anything that can play crysis.
Oh, and the meme is old too. Stop it.
Mount it on the moon.
I bet you'll be asking for "1 MILLION DOLLARS"
No, 100 Billion dollars...
"Did we get the power bill for this month yet?"
"Yeah, it came out to be $976,435.91"
watts is j/s, so if its a very small amount of time the power used is very small. And they said a ten trillionth of a second, so that comes out to about 100 J I think...
Too bad they're the longhorns and not the sharks. Then they could have sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads.
Good to see that whole "global warming" thing isn't bothering researchers in every field...
Bill: "Hey bob, should we leave the laser idling over the weekend?"
Bob: "Yeah, why not... we won't have to wait for it to spool up on monday... and the DOD is footing the bill anyway..."
Except the fact a watt is a rate, not a measure of quantity. Something going 200,000,000 miles per hour isn't going to go very far if it only moves for a trillionth of a second.
Ben : Thanks, I covered that in science in highschool... And I'm guessing that the super-capacitors storing the charge and the cooling of the facility housing all the equipment are all running on a single old ceiling fan are they?
If you want to complain about fans, I wonder if the server complex were engadget is hosted is running on a ceiling fan too? At least the laser is in the name of science (not that engadget isn't).
petawatt = 10^15
divided by
trillionth = 10^-12
is the same as 1000 watt/seconds. That's like 2-3 servers running for a second, probably doesn't generate all that much heat.
*where
and *watt-seconds, not watt/seconds
Or one really nice server 2008 machine with a few virtual servers via Hyper-V and the extra processing power taken up by Folding@Home
Ahh I can dream... half our servers are still 2k.
it's all true, but you aren't thinking of it in relativity. It's true that if something is going 100mph, in one trillionth of a sec it doesn't go very far. But, compare that to everything else that is going 10mph, or slower.
"The University of Texas at Austin will be raising tuition fees for the third year in a row, citing rising health care and energy costs. Both may be related to a new laser device built at the school last spring."
Put one of those in your presentation laser pen, point it at anyone who mutters during the presentation and next trillionth of a nano second, you have a rapt audience. Minus one mutterer and all the seats behind them, an probably the wall, floor, ceiling and half the state. Still, it would be pretty cool.
Laser rifles? It's more likely than you think.
New at 11.
Old at 12
Lazlo Holifeld would be proud.
some people take their laser tagging too seriously.
This may sound like a dumb question, but if this laser produces more energy OUTPUT than 2000 times the power capacity of the US infrastructure, where does it get its power INPUT? Assuming that the laser is an 100% efficient energy conversion, then where would you get that much power? And if by some miracle this laser is producing terawatts of "free energy" (a physics impossibility) than why aren't we using it to supply the entire world's power needs instead of "studying astronomical in miniature"?
where's the power? easy.
*flexes*
I'm going to assume some kind of capacitor, thought I claim to be nothing close to an expert in the field. After all, it IS only tenth of a trillionth of a second. Thoughts?
IT-Accountant, I was wondering the same thing. I assume because of the extremely short duration of "laser on" that something like that is possible. Does anyone know the answer to this?
Watts are measure in Joules per second. So if the laser ran for 1 second it would use one petawatt. By only running for a tenth of a trillionth of a second it doesn't use all that power.
On paper it probably has that potential. Reality would obviously be another story.
still no believers?
*grits teeth - keeps flexing*
While it's firing, it uses that much energy, but apparently it only fires for a tiny fraction of a second. They must have some kind of huge capacitors to store up the charge.
Like most lasers, it seems that efficiency on this thing is pitifully bad.
Well... a petawatt is 1'000'000'000'000'000 Watts. right?
We have that burst for a tenth of a trillionth of a second... that's. 0.0000000000001 seconds.
now just counting the 0s I'm getting something like 100 watts.
That's no more than what an average Engadget readers gadget-collection consumes whilst on standby / charging.
Even if the lasers efficiency is at only 1%, the computers in said lab will probably eat up more power.
There is a giant bank of capacitors used to power this thing.
When they say that it produces more energy output than 2000 times the capacity of the US, take the energy capacity of the US for 1/10th of a trillionth of a second, and multiply that by 2000.
The energy output could power the US for 0.000000002 seconds (or something like that...)
Now, if they operated this thing continuously for a couple of seconds, then yeah, the lights in your house may blink...
oh...i guess the adults are talking. i guess i'll go over to the kids table now.
*flexes quietly - other kids not so impressed*
By default watts are a per second rate. So that means that this thing can output the same power as the united states can in two thousand one trillionths of a second.
Chuck Norris
what, no references to 1.21 jiggawatts yet? i'm putting 2 points on each of your nerd licenses
...a petarray of triple As.
Was anybody else's first thought, "Death Star"?
Actually I was thinking of sharks with frick'n lazer beams attached to their heads.
Coming to an ebay laser pen auction soon!
Mini Me, stop humping the laser.
Hmmm.... I guess if it only lasts "a tenth of a trillionth of a second" then you won't need a very long attention span to "study astronomical phenomena in miniature".
But can it cook popcorn from orbit?
Only if Kent has built the phase conjugate target tracking system.
So... I'll guess you'll hammer later?
I wonder if it could be used as a communication device from the earth to the moon.
Then, we can have inter galaxy quake death matches to decide who is the supreme leader,and it will all just take one trillionth of a second.
your form of communication seems to be...lethal. and i'm not sure how the moon and earth would be considred inter-galaxy. and i'm not sure if we would want to have the moon win in this fight because last i checked, the earth had hotter babes and 100% more don't-need-a-space-suit-to-survive than the moon. and if you really need a communication device between the earth and the moon, just use the iPhone, because i don't know if you've heard, apparently that thing can do everything.
@y3k.nik
Actually that makes absolutely no sense...physics 101: This laser would take the same amount of time to reach the moon as another other light or other form of electromagnetic energy...the only difference would be using something like this would take more energy than we can currently produce to, say, play an instance of WoW. I.e. it would be the most inefficient form of communication humans have ever created...
I always thought lasers were being developed to be used as a form of communication, because they can travel farther distances without a medium, and without being dispersed as easy.
@schmitty338
Not the MOST inefficient form of communications ever, that would be the engadget reply system.
Will it blend?
hook 'em horns
Engadget: can you guys get "everybody's favorite frickin-laser grandma" to do editorials on anything laser related? That would be cool.
Granny won't repond to my emails requesting adoption for some strange reason.
I actually took a physics class from Prof. Ditmire about a year ago and he took us on a tour of the laser while it was under construction. The reason it doesn't kill all the electricity in normal buildings is there is this massive room of capacitors that they charge over a longer period of time. The key to the high power (watts) is that all the capacitors are discharged in about 10 femtoseconds, so to acheive a petawatt, that is only about 10 joules. It's a pretty cool building and setup though, it's this massive radiation shielded room about 3 stories tall underground below our physics building where i think our fusion reactor used to be.
I for one welcome our new Longhorn-petawatt-laser-bearing-astrophysics-studying overlords . . .
Lets string a bunch together to generate the 1.21 gigawatts we need for a flux capacitor for a few minutes. That should get us to 1985
You know what's better than sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads?
Longhorns with fricken laser beams attached to their heads.
So they haven't used it?
Can't use it?
Will blind people with their eyes closed?
Point?
Finally....Kane has the technology to build his Obelisk Towers....
Can we blow up Alderaan NOW!!!
Laser'em?
I hope it's not actually named "The Texas Petawatt." That's such a boring name. They should call it "The Alan Parson's Project", especially if they eventually put it on the moon - thus creating a sort of "Death Star."
Hell yeah...Hook 'em. I'm alright with my tuition money going to that, lol.
I wonder if it can blow up my dorm Jester here on campus... The thing was built like a prison!
And they better warn us before they use that thing. I don't want my power to flicker while playing an online game (and disconnect!)
Brodie:
Damn straight.
...i never got the email. What??
...grrrr, that was supposed to be for hypereric.
Frickin' comment system.
And it's all powered by a fossil-fuel-burning power plant!
Guys, you're all thinking way too complex. This lase was built 'for science', but actually because the next time Texas is playing a game and loosing, they will be able to shut off the lights in the stadium by just starting up the laser too long. The players will be equiped with night vision goggles and win the game.
You'll see, next year Texas will be NCAA champions in all fields! ;-)
Go Horns!
It might be the world's most powerful laser but can it pop balloons and light matches??? :)
Otto
http://www.dragonlasers.com
Didn't we see this laser in "Real Genius"? Oh wait, that wasn't a tenth of a trillionth of a second.
But I'd like this in my next handheld laser pointer. What'll that take? Couple o' AA's?