047 Lasers and Death Rays, Jeff Hecht
Curiosityness
Travis DeRose
4.8 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2019
⏱️ 81 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The story of the quest for the ultimate weapon: lasers and death rays!
From the time ancient Greek scientist Archimedes set Roman ships on fire by focusing sunlight on them to the new generation of prototype high-energy lasers being tested by military agencies around the world.
Jeff Hecht shares who invented the laser, how lasers work, rocket-engine lasers, and where we are today in the quest to build the ultimate death ray laser weapon!
Find Jeff's book, Lasers, Death Rays, and the Long, Strange Quest for the Ultimate Weapon, on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2XhSsL0
Learn more on Jeff's website: https://www.jeffhecht.com
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Find me, the host of Curiosityness on Instagram: @travderose
Or send me an email to travis@curiosityness.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the 47th episode of Curiosityness. I am the host, Travis DeRose, and this episode is |
| 0:09.7 | Lasery, because I have on Jeff Hetched, who is the author of Lasers, Death Rays, and the Long |
| 0:16.8 | Strange Quest for the Ultimate Weapon. And that's what we talk about. It's pretty fun. |
| 0:21.0 | We start with, you know, the history of kind of the laser and even like, you know, Archimedes and |
| 0:27.8 | the ancient Greeks and what they were doing back then with lasers and directing sunlight and then |
| 0:32.1 | kind of the invention of the laser in the 60s. And it's crazy how it affects everything today. We use the laser so much |
| 0:40.7 | from like fiber optics to a CD player to other stuff. There's a lot. Trust me, when you go through |
| 0:48.3 | the list. Just can't think of it now. But it was really cool to talk about Jeff, to talk to Jeff |
| 0:53.7 | about all this stuff because we talk about |
| 0:55.4 | the invention of the laser and also kind of the science fictiony side of things where, you know, |
| 1:01.1 | you have the death rays that people are talking about. And, you know, that's what people in real |
| 1:06.8 | life were kind of working on and hoping to get. They wanted to use it as a weapon, |
| 1:11.4 | especially during like the Cold War and stuff like that. But things are still progressing today. |
| 1:17.4 | We're still making lasers, stronger and stronger lasers, and we're finding more and more |
| 1:22.7 | uses for it. But I'm going to stop. I'm going to let Jeff start talking. So without further ado, |
| 1:27.3 | here is episode 47 with Jeff Hetched. |
| 1:33.1 | And boom. What's up, Jeff? How's it going? |
| 1:37.1 | I'm ready to talk about lasers and death rays. Thanks for call it, Travis. |
| 1:43.2 | Yeah, of course. |
| 1:45.1 | I mean, that's what you do. |
| 1:47.3 | You talk about lasers and death rays. |
| 1:48.4 | You wrote a book on it even. |
... |
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