Comment by metalman
1 month ago
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
Light being coherent and light being dangerous are two completely orthogonal concepts. A laser is dangerous because of the very tight beam, but any household mirror keeps that beam focused. Plus, a mosquito needs 100millijoules to fry (from the intellectual ventures study) which is a lot more than what a retina can handle. The short duration actually makes it even worse, because the eye lids can’t close soon enough to avoid the retina burning (they take 100ms to close). That’s the reason why lasers are classed by power.
A retina being easier to burn than a mosquito is the fundamental reason why we haven’t seen that tech deployed. LiDAR detection with a 2D goniometer + high power laser has been available commercially for a while. There just never was someone to create something so deceptive as to sell a 40watts device as possibly safe.
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> any light reflected in a domestic situation will no longer be a cohearant laser.
As incorrect as it is misspelled. Reflections are inherently coherent.
> if it was very focused UV it could cause temporary blindness
The wavelength being UV (which it certainly is not) is irrelevant. Blindness can result from any visible spectrum laser, or from thermal IR damage.
You've lost all credibility to me at this point.