Science!: World’s Most Powerful Laser Unveiled

From the Death Star to Dr. Evil’s sharks, nothing gets the nerd up around here like friggin’ laser beams. That’s why when I was doing my daily search of news the other day, I gasped with delight as soon as I read the headline: “World’s Strongest Laser Unveiled”. Take it away, AP:

The super laser, known officially as the National Ignition Facility, was unveiled at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about 50 miles east of San Francisco.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., were among thousands of people in attendance at the ceremony.

The NIF, which is the size of a football field, consists of 192 separate laser beams, each traveling 1,000 feet in one-thousandth of a second to converge simultaneously on a target the size of a pencil eraser.

There’s something perfect about Schwarzenegger being the one to unveil it officially, seeing as pretty much every movie he’s ever been in featured lasers, with the exception of Kindergarten Cop. And what’s that about using this to keep tabs on the world’s nuclear supply? I thought the only way to use lasers was to annoy professional soccer players.

Oh, science. Will you ever not be awesome?