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I hope I'm wrong, but this seems like a lot of other "firsts". I'm guessing the total (and I mean -total-, lasers typically aren't that efficient) energy put into this will be much greater than the output.


At least according to the TFA, it seems that the breakthrough is that they got 2.5 mJ out vs. the 2.1 mJ that was used to power the laser.


MJ, not mJ. 2.5mJ is roughly the energy of a single keyboard keypress. 2.5MJ is over half a kilo of TNT.

Fun fact that Wolfram alpha just informed me of: a phone uses between 10 and 20 MJ a year: multiple kilos of TNT. 4000mAh * 3.7V * 365: yep, it's about right.


Oh, oops that's a mistake, thanks for catching that.

Also, interesting fun fact indeed.




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