The Action Lab: Lasers, LEDS, lenses and focusing intensity to burn or illuminate things, vortex pressure

The Action Lab: What Happens if You Focus a 5W Laser With a Giant Magnifying Glass? Negative Kelvin Temperature! at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdjTYlReE-I

The intensity in Watts/meter^2 is roughly equal to the Stefan-Boltzmann constant times the 4th power of the temperature in Kelvin. When you focus parallel rays to a smaller area, the intensity goes up, and the temperature. The laser vacuum experiments will try to focus so the intensity is sufficient to generate particle-antiparticle pairs (electron and positron) from the vacuum. If you use a mirror, rather than a lens with spherical surfaces, you can combine many mirrors to focus the light from LEDs or many sources to an area where the intensity is greater than the source. You are not violating any laws. Total power does not matter, rather the intensity.

You really ought to learn some basic physics and use equations and models. If you memorize fragments and do not measure and calculate, you are always going to be limited in what you can do. On a human level, there are millions of the 5 billion internet users who are interested in lasers, focusing and using light. But all they find are too complicated theories for people to show off, or too simplistic fragments that are never enough. The first I call “floofy science” so clumsy and obscure it is unusable. The second I call “shooting from the hip”. The sweet spot for a global human society is “engineering”.

I had a boss long ago who was always saying “get our ducks in a row”. You are not getting your ducks in a row. You do not need everyone to read five textbooks and memorize hundreds of formulas. You can gather the pieces yourself, put that into a model with all the necessary constants and data, and let those of the 5 billion who want to do things use it. Give them tools and data in a form they can use it. Don’t make them figure it out for themselves from scratch. That hurts the human species to have everyone reinvent the wheel. The same if for tens of millions of similar things on the Internet.

Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation


Steve Mould: Shining a laser through a light bulb can reveal the structure of DNA at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqMYWldfs_k

Steve Mould, I learned new, and relevant, things from your video. If you had $Thanks, I would be writing this along with a small donation. You could more easily used fine copper wire and wrap it around a thicker piece of wire to make a coil. There are lots of people who get supported to do the work they love. And they help millions, or tens of millions of the 5 billion Internet users. Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation


The Action Lab: Amazing Effect When You Put a Whirlpool in a Vacuum Chamber at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdeChnr8HQw

Add some dye to the water to see the convection. The vortex is circulating the water that goes down. Your vacuum would be more convincing if you measure and model ALL the forces. If you put a string on the ball, you can measure downward force. You can use camera data to track its depth in the water. By using quantitative models, measurement you do science. Otherwise it is just a sales pitch for what I call it, “science-y eye candy”. Science writes things down. Science remembers and shares so others do no have to guess or figure it all out themselves. Science allows global growth of knowledge. But I say Science Technology Engineering Mathematics Computers Finance Governance Other (STEMCFGO) because no group should gain dominance and control over others. Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation

Richard K Collins

About: Richard K Collins

Director, The Internet Foundation Studying formation and optimized collaboration of global communities. Applying the Internet to solve global problems and build sustainable communities. Internet policies, standards and best practices.


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