World's most powerful laser to tear apart the vacuum of space

[n2doc]

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent7:00AM GMT 30 Oct 2011

Due to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider, the latest "big science" experiment being proposed by physicists will see the world's most powerful laser being constructed.

Capable of producing a beam of light so intense that it would be equivalent to the power received by the Earth from the sun focused onto a speck smaller than a tip of a pin, scientists claim it could allow them boil the very fabric of space – the vacuum.

Contrary to popular belief, a vacuum is not devoid of material but in fact fizzles with tiny mysterious particles that pop in and out of existence, but at speeds so fast that no one has been able to prove they exist.

The Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility would produce a laser so intense that scientists say it would allow them to reveal these particles for the first time by pulling this vacuum "fabric" apart.

more
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8857154/Worlds-most-powerful-laser-to-tear-apart-the-vacuum-of-space.html

[Poll_Blind]

1. Be careful with that thing, fellas.

We've come a long way from Red Ryders.

PB

[dionysus]

3. whoops, we put the galaxy's eye out...

[Fumesucker]

2. Let there be LIGHT!

Interesting stuff, doesn't it seem a bit odd that we're about to boil the fabric of space but we're going to do it with energy from oxidizing biological material that's millions of years old?

[Poll_Blind]

4. Agreed. And the older I get, the reality of reality puts the best fiction to shame. nt

PB

[bananas]

14. To paraphrase Donny Rumsfeld, you go with the Dinos you got, not the Dinos you wish you had. nt

edit to add: and yes it does seem a bit odd ...

[valerief]

5. Scientists running with scissors! nt

[donco]

6. Wait till the

Military gets ahold of that sucker and sticks it in a drone.:crazy:

[loudsue]

7. The Law of Unintended Consequences is going to be a bitch on this one

Do-overs may be out of the question.

[rurallib]

8. meet me on the other side of the black hole.

[Angry Dragon]

9. I am so glad they have every thing figured out

As the vacuum boils scientists realize that it will boil ALL of the vacuum

[NBachers]

10. And as Yog-Sothoth emerges through the rending dark beyond . . .

[intaglio]

15. As long as the Auditors don't come through

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditors_of_Reality

[TheMadMonk]

16. More honest than that upstart Yaweh. /nt

[Remember Me]

11. That rates right up there with the idea one of the NASA scientists had

to solve the global warming crisis by altering the orbit of earth -- just sent Earth a little further out than it is.

[intaglio]

12. Why do I hear thes guys saying ....

MWAHAHAHAHAHA?

[laconicsax]

13. ...

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1979

[Ganja Ninja]

17. Here's an artist's concept.