How lasers work (in theory)

How does a laser really work? It's Bose - Einstein statistics! (photons are bosons)

Check out Smarter Every Day's video showing lasers in real life: http://bit.ly/uBwhU2

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[platinumfrost]

I remember the first time i got excited by a photon when it pass me by.. ahh love.

[khosrow]

"imagine two coins...ecept photons are nothing like coins" fuck you XD

[lolziesish]

first, photons aren't really like digital signals, they're not "different" or "the same". Maybe I just misunderstood your explanation. Second, I'm pretty sure other atoms are stimulated to emit light when another passes by because it transmit enough energy for that second atom to create a photon of its own. Same process for them to change directions, it's all energy transfer.

[ZettaFan]

Ok. So what if you had a one way mirror on the inside of the laser, could that possibly result in infinite light!?!

[analyseforu]

Time to buy a new marker.

[Deadmau5wannabe]

this really helped me for my science project

[Deathray75]

@flamingfalkor So what about this if i hit my two pans together as hard as i can apart from becoming deaf light does seems to leak out. Its it simply that i dont have enought "umpth" to cause this

[flamingfalkor]

@Deathray75 There's two main ways, collisions and light. Collisions would be like heat and light would be like solar cells. When atoms collide they release heat, so a greater number of hot atoms (like a fire) produces more heat (like fire heating metal). Light excites atoms by making their electrons "jump" to a higher energy level. When the valence (outermost) electrons are excited like this they escape from their orbits and are released as electricity.

[darkilustrisimus]

I killed my cat with laser

[newbiedoodle]

1:16 Well, we seem to have a threeway... Look at the bottom of the laser.

[aluisious]

...this video didn't explain dink.