Yeah, but you can do that with a 5mW Green laser pointer.
Anything more powerful than that is unnecessary.
Holy shit, this is such a good idea I’m amazed it doesn’t happen all the time. When you say, “a score to settle,” are you referring to sports betting? Because that’s what I thought of immediately, and someone could make millions of dollars this way.
Someone pointed a not very powerful laser at an NBA player attempting a free throw several years ago.
Well, it’s not as easy as all that. First, you need to get an IR laser that small enough to be unobtrusive, and powerful enough to cause eye damage. IR light doesn’t damage the retina - it damages the cornea, and it takes a lot of power. For instantaneous damage to occur, the laser would have to be pretty damn powerful, on the order of thousands of watts for millisecond pulses, which is going to make it pretty big. Then you need to create a binocular with the laser mounted in it, and align it - which requires and IR imager or sensor. You then need to be willing to blind someone, and to take the risk of getting caught, which would certainly result in felony charges.
Still, people cheat in all kinds of ways, so I suppose someone might try it someday.
I’m not saying you’d need the IR laser, or need to blind anyone. The key is that the laser pointer be disguised behind the lens of a binocular or camera. That would be virtually undetectable. As long as it was powerful enough to reach the player on the field, and distract him, it would work.
Sure, but then you’re really lookin’ to get the crap kicked out of you when you are discovered - and I don’t think it’s going to be as easy to hide as you think.
Exactly. I was in fact referring to sports betting.
We’re not talking “death ray” here (of any decade), just a pulse – visible or otherwise – that lasts long enough to disrupt concentration.
As for aiming it, it wouldn’t really be terribly hard to drill a hole into a camera body, insert a small laser pointer, rewire the button to the camera shutter, and then align the beam with the camera’s focusing crosshairs so that in a stadium, the laser (diffused from the distance) would be able to hit an eye-sized target just long enough to make somebody pause for a second.
And if you really want to go the IR route, anything that causes sensible discomfort would probably be enough. And as for imager, many camcorders and older digicams can already partially see into the IR, and can do so more readily if they bother to take apart the body to remove the IR filter.
Maybe you could even do a through-the-lens setup with an SLR, either by fiddling with the optics and focusing (hard) or by simply drilling a tiny hole through the center of all the lens elements so that the laser will go right through them while still making it look like a regular lens.
You’re not really limited to obvious things like cameras, either. Penlaser on the ear that mimics a ballpoint, glued to a pair of glasses with an etched crosshair for a given distance? Something built into the glasses frame? Into a baseball cap? Part of a cell phone with a laser or mirror replacing the camera? A wax hot dog? Etc.
ETA: If any of you end up making an eye-tracking hot dog death ray, I want an autographed unit.
I was very interested in procuring one of those when I first heard about them, until I read that the scattered reflected light causes freakin’ cancer?
Maybe, but your actual exposure time is incredibly small, unless you’re using the laser for hours at a time frequently, and have a large amount of uncovered skin.
I often wonder this as well. Especially with google available, how hard is it to check your “facts”?
The problem is that there are likely just as many sites supporting the facts as refuting them.
Not to mention the number of sheer idiots who are online. Yahoo! Answers, anyone?
Did those sites mention what happened to the scumbags lasering the goalie? Because given how serious the rest of the world seems to take their soccer games, I can’t see any other outcome other than fans of the other team, ah, beating them to death! Don’t deserve to die, but they do deserve a good thrashing!
Not to mention air traffic and law enforcement.
I’ve never heard a good explaination as to how air traffic, other than right at point of landing or take off, is endangered by a laser pointer. Sure, I can shine a laser that may shine on the windows of an aircraft, but since it’s going to be over my head, all that is going to happen is bit of a green glow appears on the window or the ceiling. More likely, I’m going to light up a spot on the bottom of the fuselage or the wings. What am I missing?
It’s only the landings that are a concern.
Pilots have been injured by lasers damaging their vision; this cite claims two pilots in separate incidents:
Gettleman, Jeffrey “F.B.I. to Investigate Reports of Lasers Beamed at Planes” New York Times 31 December, 2004: B6.
At that distance, I think it’d be more like a flashlight in your eye rather than a small dot somewhere unseen.
There are some pictures in this BBC story, but I’m not sure if that’s actually how it looks or if it’s just an illustration:
How powerful of a laser do you need to safely kill spiders, scorpions, or other creepy crawlies that live in the house but need killing? I am particularly interested in lasers that can kill before one of those little SOBs sting my toes to death; it is not sufficient to me for the bastards to die of blue laser cancer some time after the attack.
A pilot with impaired vision is going to have difficulty landing. I suggest interested Dopers go to www.pprune.org and read the various threads there.
My 1W laser would kill most insects, provided you could get them to stay still long enough. It would probably kill a spider in about 5 seconds, but the stupid thing wouldn’t stay put, and it becomes very hard to keep the spot on something once it starts moving. In the meantime, you’ll be dragging that hot spot across the carpet, your walls, your pets, and anything else nearby, possibly damaging other things. My guess is if you want to kill with a quick zap you’d need a 10W laser to be sure. It depends on how long of a zap.