Have you ever wondered what the most powerful laser in the world is? I have. It appears that the most powerful laser is the "Petawatt" laser that was initially fired in Lawrence Livermore in 1996.
The Petawatt created 10 to the 15th power watts of energy! That is 10 quadrillion watts (10,000,000,000,000,000 watts)! Placing that in perspective, the average light bulb uses 60 watts. Better yet, this was 1,200 times the electrical generating power of the entire United States!
Unlike most lasers that have long pulses, the Petawatt laser only lasted for only one trillionth of a second (10 to the negative 12th of a second). Because the pulse was so incredibly short, this created only enough energy to use a light bulb for about 6 seconds!
The new most powerful laser in the world beat the previous record holder, the NOVA, by a factor of more than 10.
So what is one to do with the strongest laser in the world? The Petawatt recreates conditions on the sun. This enables researches to create a fusion reaction where hydrogen atoms are fused to create helium ones. This fantastic laser also opens up new doors for studying the fundamental properties of matter.
My question is, where can I buy one of these lasers?
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