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Comment by alextousss

1 month ago

I’m not here to sell my own startup, but there are other ways to kill mosquitoes than a 40 watts laser that could make someone blind from a secondary reflection (out of the mmWave radar detection range)

I think that by "secondary reflection" you are perhaps refering to a direct single reflection, rather than a double bank? But in any case it is very very unlikely that there will anything availible outside of a high caliber optics lab that can reflect cohearant laser beams in such a way as to retain a dangerous power level. The 40 watt laser is needed in order to provide a kill shot in in a small target in millisecond pulse, that only has to penetrate a fraction of a millimeter, and would be unlikely to penetrate a full cm into a human eye and do permanent damage even with a direct hit, not that anyone is going to advocate for useing lasers for eye surgery....oh wait

  • I may haven't fully understood your answer, but a typical household mirror could reflect 90% of the laser power in a single coherent direction. Any sufficiently polished metal tool would have dangerous specular direction. I'm not sure of the math for a diffuse reflection, but the laser classification is here for a reason.

    A human eye being transparent up to the fragile retina, yes, a laser would penetrate the eye and be concentrated in an extremely small spot on the retina. That's exactly the reason why we have safety around lasers, and why everything above 5mw is strictly for enclosed use. 40 watts shot at random in the void is definitely dangerous by all measures.

    • any light reflected in a domestic situation will no longer be a cohearant laser.if it was very focused UV it could cause temporary blindness, but a milisecond pulse will not contain enough energy to burn @ 40 watts, all that said, it is a given that certifying lasers for full on autonomous bug zapping(a dream of billions), is a very steep regulatory hill to climb, and will not be decided on redit, or here but as insectides get less effective while also proving to be realy bad for our environment, and the possibility of a true plauge bieng vectored by mosquitos a constant concern, I am absoulutly certain that research into laser bug zappers is going to progress

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