Scientists at Osaka University have fired the world's most powerful laser beam. (Or, as a wise man once intoned, the world's most powerful laser beam so far.) It is seriously powerful—the amount of energy it produced was equivalent to 1,000 times the amount of electricity consumed across the globe. What's more—the laser beam was powered by the same amount of energy it takes to run a microwave for two seconds. You can't even heat up a Toaster Strudel in that amount of time.
How'd they do it? Let the people at IFLScience explain:
None
A picosecond, fam? This is serious. But we have some questions: did the laser beam only go off for a trillionth of a second? Could anyone even tell? What, pray tell, was it aimed at? Could this be used to fight supervillians? Is this all part of an elaborate marketing scheme for an upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe addition? And why, oh why would researchers want to build a laser ten times as strong? Honestly Marvel, not funny—we want answers.
[via IFLScience]
