[Kamog]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Slightly (OK, very) OT, but I came across this and thought of you lot: Build a giant super-laser in the privacy of your own home for just $500.

find a pvc pipe 20 feet long and 12 inches diameter. cut the ends
totally parallel to each other. glue a polished copper disk on one end
and a disk with a 3 inch hole on the other. Make sure these disks are
aligned with a laser pointer or something. melt some salt so when it
cools it looks like a 4 inch dish about an inch thick. glue it onto
the hole. Attach your bolt style electrodes into the cavity. So the
whole thing looks like a regular laser but bigger. Pump out the air,
backfill with co2 laser gas at 100-400 torrs. Hoist this thing on top
of tree. You have one electrode at ground and the other has magnet
wire the end of this magnet wire is a rocket from estes or something.
when a storm comes around and the lightning is close you know what to
do. I read that a lightning strike contains over a billion joules of
energy!! just multiply that by the standard co2 conVersion efficiency
of 20% and you got yourself a laser that can make startrek captains
drool.

It this really going to work? Why make that dish out of salt? And hoisting the thing up on a tree and waiting for lightning to strike sounds kind of iffy... If will be really cool if it worked, though.