My 3-watt laser hitting an Oreo cookie. For science.

Warning: Nerd Alert – if you’re not into science and the skillful application of lasers to burn, burst, or melt objects you may want to skip this chapter.

I’m very fond of all things science, but especially lasers. I got my first one when I was about 14-years-old, and over the years, my interests in lasers only grew. For a while I even worked at a company in southern Arizona that made an array of laser scanners for military, industrial and commercial uses. In fact, when the space shuttle Challenger was destroyed due to cold O-rings, my company got a phone message from the contractor who built the solid rocket boosters, Morton Thiokol, inquiring as to whether we could build a laser flatness detector (more properly a laser interferometer), which works by the same mechanism that creates the holograms like on your credit cards. Continue reading →