Physicist Explains Lasers in 5 Levels of Difficulty | WIRED
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- čas přidán 27. 10. 2019
- Donna Strickland, PhD, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics and a professor at the University of Waterloo, is challenged to explain lasers to 5 different people; a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student, and an expert.
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Physicist Explains Lasers in 5 Levels of Difficulty | WIRED - Věda a technologie
All the dislikes are uw students who failed Donna's class
it's funny because your comment have 143 likes and the video has 147 dislikes.
@@mhj4867 rn the comment has 161 likes on both comment and video,,
Lol, i liked the video thoooo
its true
i did it
I'm still waiting for this channel to ask me to explain "How to make Authentic Mexican Tacos" to 5 different levels of difficulty, LOL! I'd kill it.. jaja
Scientist: *slaps roof of laser*
"This bad boy can knock so many electrons off its atom"
Duch an underrated comment
Lol
oh no, not this meme again
@@xarmanhsh2981 is this a meme
More like **Slaps backhand against palm** "This bad boy can fit so many photons per square centimeter"
Badum tss
She has a Nobel Prize in Physics. I would say that every time I said my name if I was her.
and that's one of the reasons why you will never be even close to have a NOBEL prize.
@@K40L4 Not even one of the top 100 reasons though!
Don’t worry her reaction to it hasn’t been too different. Winning the nobel has really gotten to her head.
Source: first-hand observation
@@missolympiabinewski She is clearly better at research than education. I don't think her demos left the young children with much more than a gee whiz moment that they got to meet somebody that all the adults are impressed with. The 8 year-old was told to watch out for the flashing red lights at the grocery store and the 12 year-old thought that lasers could be "any color" and that their primary characteristic was to deliver a highly concentrated punch.
Markle2k agreed. This is the worst iteration of “expert explains”. She described it as a challenge at the beginning... and then proceeded to fail.
i failed her class in waterloo rip
Edit: the class was EnM
F
thats because waterloo is a trap
that's because she is a horrible teacher. She's smart, but teaching isn't for her.
F
Feridun
i love how casually they are talking about coming up with the next nobel prize-winning idea
Like a Sheldon.
@@UncommonSense-wm5fd what's this supposed to mean?
@@UncommonSense-wm5fd okay but isn't that how all govt funded research works?
burning a cancer cell using a laser is actually a nice idea
I am the 666th like on this comment if anyone cares.
*Dr. Donna Strickland* is a *Laser Legend.* _And don’t forget…_ *she got that Noble Prize for her invention of CPA.* Brilliant!
Laser Legend is something I would definitely write in my business card
I’m not certain, but I think she went deeper with the 12 year old than she expected to.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
That sounds weird...
Why does that sound... inappropriate? O.0
I was watching the one on Gravity, and the 8-yo kid was smarter than half the adults I meet. Like, you could stop twenty people on the street and ask them what causes the tides, and half of them would ask you what the word "tides" means. >_
@@verenigingvandemagogen4548 where you hiding funny bro?
What I like about this series is that an average viewer can somehow jive with conversations between two experts by spoon feeding simpler explanations first
I don’t jive, *I boogie*
@DiCi Abadines, It's sometimes known as the Feynman Technique, first articulated by Richard Feynman - a great physicist a great teacher, and a wonderful, funny human being.
🤣😂😂 that’s funny
8:45 "Lasers aren't like particles" I'm sure she cried a little bit inside in wave-particle duality tears
her expression also changed
underrated comment 😂
Yeah that kid will go on to fail her class
Obvious
Teen: 12 Years Old??? It doesn’t even end in “teen”.
yu fony man, be praud of yuself
Flyte you offended me
“Tween” oh wait that’s why they’re called that :0
Flyte you are very correct
Twelve-teen
Hand against Back-of-the-Hand SMACKS : 8:33 , 11:01 , 12:20 , 14:59 , 15:31 , 16:42
DRAVY *SMAK*
15:31 makes me feel oddly dirty
Great now that's all I can see!
smack that hand!
Smack that electron. Smack it good! 😂
"Smacks those electrons right off the atoms."
-Donna Strickland, 2019
Best quote ever!
Explanation of LASER
For a child: actual LASER
For an almost teen: hammer
For a college student: slinky
Cute eh?
For a child: a laser, one of many
I think that was more for us than for them lol. Hey, I need the visuals haha.
For an expert: sTAr wArS
Holy F, a Nobel laureate on Wired, that's something.
I could tell she was super smart when she could not really dumb down what she did to kids so well.
that girl is so adorable, i love how young minds think and interact.
Expert: What have you learnt about churped pulses?
Me: Kindly repeat everything you said form the very beginning.
chirped means that the frequency shifts in the pulse.
@@LockenJohny101 Chirped pulse amplification is a technique for amplifying an ultrashort laser pulse with the laser pulse being stretched out temporally, then amplified, and then compressed again.
@@TiberiusStorm the question was what chirped means.
Also I have never heard the term chirped pulse amp for what you just said. But I might just have forgot it. It also isnt necessarily used on ultrashort pulses is it?
The twelve year old kid really impressed me. I love how curious and thoughtful he was. I wonder what he will do with his life and the things he can accomplish.
very bright
laser sharp kid
@@danielsayre3385 lol
Yeah he was genuinely interested and curious. It was cute 😊🫶🏼
Studying high intensity lasers? Just admit it, you're a jedi.
Well I mean... 5:53
@Nathan SindlingerWell, the Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers. Emphasis on supposed to be...
Yall realise she has a Nobel prize in physics and not a Peace prize right…
Lightsabers' blades are made of plasma, they aren't lasers. Like most of the blasters in the SW universe.
Combining multiple smaller lasers into one big laser sounds more Sith to me (ala the Death Star).
Simplest explanation: PEW PEW.
Okay, this is the best comment in this thread.
No real lasers are more like “zzzzzzt!”
Haha, I feel like she overshot so hard with that 12 year old. I think she was expecting a 16/17 year old who'd done some high school science.
and the child. no prep.
@notfiveo still a 12 yr old
@notfiveo What’s Mensa?
I can only understand the conversation with the child.
My dear, stop exposing how stupid you are to the world. Btw, i swear i saw you in commenting in scmp hk riot news video as well, or i might be wrong.
Nash you need to chill my man lol
@@NashTheGreat lol just look at her Playlist, this girl is f@#&ng smart, she knows a lot of things that a normal person wouldn't even question.
She's most likely joking. 😂
@@bowzobetsiq4945 stalking people's feed is not my style.
@@NashTheGreat says the one who posts videos so people can see their channel. Lol jokes on you.
I always love listening to the experts speak, it always reminds me of the benefit of putting most of your effort and hours into something you actually love.
exactly what I think
Shows necklace, "this is a physical representation of my superiority in this subject over you, BUY IT NOW IN THE NOBEL GIFT SHOP!!!"
The first little girl has stolen my heart she's so cute and excited :D
FBI!!! OPEN UP!!!
@@Overneed-Belkan-Witch Your reaction to the OP says a lot more about you then his comment did about him.
John Behrens Pretty sure it’s a meme but go off I guess?
Calling little kids cute means pedo nowadays...
Yes!!! She's adorable!
No one:
Scientist: *smacks something*
"Smack those electrons right off the atoms"
Beat the devil out of it
THOSE ELECTRONS, gotta SMACK them off the atoms😂😂😂.
She is smarter than anyone i know and will ever know, and she knows more on the topic than anyone else. But its pretty clear that she isn't a good teacher.
Apparently she isn't, there's a lot of angry people here who failed her class 😂
@@josephblattert6311 ehh, could you elaborate? I don't think i understood your comment correctly.
@@bleflar9183 you mentioned that you didn't think she was a good teacher and I was confirming your suspicion because a ton of people in this comment section took her class at University and failed it
@@josephblattert6311 Oh, ok.
Yeah she tried to convey to the little girl that a laser is small by comparing it to her huge hair 🤣
Donna is such an inspiration.She has immersed her life into lasers completely. I admire her for the way she says 'my laser'
The only real mistake is assuming a city kid in 2019 has hit a nail into a piece of wood before.
He blurred for a moment looking at that nail
Hahahahaaahaahaa lol that’s what i was thinking
Ok boomer
BOOMER ALERT!!!!!
@@KELSEYsecretsideaccounf I'm pretty sure boomers are like 60 now?
Yikes. I'm nearing a PhD and have trouble following her. She is amazing no doubt but needs to slow down and define things for us other people.
What about it didn't you understand? Even with her colleague, the idea of compressed energy and the Schwinger limit was fascinating!
Looks like we ve got a nobel prize winner here
yeah at no point did she explain why her lasers have a continuous spectrum. For all i know emission lines are pretty set in stone
@@joshwilliams8863 r/iamverysmart
@@majorfallacy5926 yeah I do kinda wish she talked a little bit about optical cavities. To give a rough idea of why the same laser could have more than one color, think about a wind instrument like a flute. A flute has a fixed cavity length but you can get lots of notes out of the same instrument (ie colors in a laser). However some notes will sound nice and loud out of a flute and others will not. For the loud notes, you'll find that if you take the length of a single wiggle and make a bunch of copies, they will fit perfectly in the length of the flute. The same thing happens in a laser cavity and by finding broad gain media you can put energy into some of the other 'notes' of the laser.
Sounds like the Expert is trying to build a Death Star Station.
Well she seems to think about forgoing the moon. Both in power needs and size :D
"I had an Engineering Physics degree"
*Theorists triggered
Why
@@pomegranatechannel pi =3
Wrong, pi is a constant and therefore basically 1, same as cos(x)
@@khizarpasha6105 e=π=3
She said got not had
*puts on glasses* Um actually, most star wars guns do not shoot lasers. They emit bolts of super heated plasma.
ATinyWaffle 😭😭*applauding*
On point😏
Shut up.
Who cares.
@@verenigingvandemagogen4548 if a storm trooper or Jedi played "laser" with your cat, you'd care too! 😭
@@pondboy3682 OK
The little quizzes at the end of these videos gives me so much anxiety
you could have at least got a 13 year old for the teen category.
13 year old boys don’t like science
I do
@@ricardoiturralde5337
Not all of them.
You’re all wrong except Hoi
At least in english.
between this and the video about dimension i really understood that i don't get physics at all
Physics isn't that hard to understand..... once you've got a solid decade plus of math study behind you!
@@SoundSpeeding yeah that i don't have
@@SoundSpeeding If something needs a decade of anything to be easily understood, it's not a hard subject to understand.
@@cevcena6692 "If something needs a decade of anything to be easily understood, it's not a hard subject to understand."
So you are agreeing with me ;-)
And a decade of math studying is NOTHING (I was definitely underestimating that....)
@Gian Fernandelz It is easy if you want to learn pop science or school physics bill nye tier. Lots of physics is basically high level maths differential equations, tensor calculus that you have to understand, good problem solving abilities, and also a bit knowledge of chemistry. It takes years to really get comfortable with it
Please make even more of these! They're honestly really good!
Teen: Twelveteen
They had one job
don't forget eleventeen
two teen
Firsteen, seconteen, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...prove me wrong! (No dictionaries, please! 😬)
"Have you seen a laser before?"
"Well i dont have a cat, so no"
Hahahhahhahha
Can i get the 5 level explanation of what a “teen” is? I thought I knew but I guess not.
Underrated comment
bye
The little girl was so cute! 😍 and like how she was engaged in the conversation.
There's two important kinds of teachers that really bother me: (1) the ones who treat you like you're stupid and take hours to explain a simple concept and (2) the ones who teach as if everybody knew what they know and make people feel uncomfortable to ask for clarification. She's the second kind and I don't blame her.
Ever had a teacher that did both? Spend all week explaining the introduction, and then assume you already know the rest? 😲
Ponderdeep yes, that’s exactly what some of my teachers are like.
Laser is an acronym:
Light
Amplification by
Stimulated
Emission of
Radiation
*stimulated
@@cptcaps2405 you're right. It's stimulated not simulated
The precursor to laser was maser, with the ‘m’ being microwave. Scientists at the time couldn’t find a medium to stimulate optical light but were able to do it for microwave.
The man's name who pioneered lasers? Albert Einstein.
My brain was not ready for this at 4am..
If I only had profs like her back in the days, I would have never dropped school. She's very good!
What I'm hearing is: "we made photon torpedoes and now we're working on a death star"
It's great to know that there are people this incredibly smart out there to figure this stuff out.
And for all you out there learning this stuff, hats off to you.
Thanks.
"Tell me a bit about yourself"
Me: 0:51 "Well, I'm somebody"
"I'm an expert in lasers." "I don't like science fiction." ...... what
Hahahaha, I know, that's what I thought!
@@baderminahdin9450 that's because star wars isn't science fiction. It's fantasy. It's not trying be sci fi. Also they are not actually lasers in the star wars universe, more like plasma bolts. Though this is a later addition. But maybe tone down on the attitude and let people have fun with what they like.
@@baderminahdin9450 that might be one if the most stupid comments I've read today. Well done.
it's totally possible for an archaeologist to dislike Jurassic park, just look at the T-rex, they scream like a exaggerated auto-tuned lion roar..
@@baderminahdin9450 my Physics teacher (admittedly, not a Nobel laurete) is a massive sci-fi fan. I think it just depends on what you like, and if you can't suspend your disbelief, no matter who you are, you won't enjoy sci-fi/fantasy
I've seen similar behaviour in Feringa, the 2016 nobel prize winner in Chemistry. Strongly absorbed in their own field of research, thinking to apply it to absolutely any problem they can think of. You ask them anything, they'll shoehorn their nobel prize topic in the conversation one way or another. Conversations between colleagues turn into in-jokes about them winning a nobel prize.
I am a huge fan of the Quantum Computing Expert video, that one fits the five-level format extremely well because of how humble the presenter is about their knowledge. In this video it's interesting that we're shown Donna explaining lasers to five different people, but more because of her and her enthusiasm than because of what she teaches - and the format is just used as a way to lead into the final discussion, talking with a colleague about very optimistic future perspective.
Very enjoyable series so far, I wonder what you guys do with the format, whether it gets perfected/concentrated or it will still be experimental.
Agreed, she's quite insufferable here. You could play a drinking game with the number of times she says "Nobel Prize."
I also really enjoyed the quantum computing video, and I absolutely loved the video about gravity. The scientist featured there is approachable and enthusiastic, and even though the concepts became so complex by the end that it was difficult for me to really understand what they were talking about, it made me want to learn more.
I found all the videos interesting, but not all of them particularly educational. This one is the latter.
20:50 made me laugh so much! "I didn't know what it was scattering off of" 😂😂 I LOVE this series!
Same!
I was lucky enough to tour the HERCULES laser at the university of Michigan, which was at the time (maybe still is) the most powerful chirp laser in the world.
I'm so glad she's so proud of herself
Great for her. And she's impressive. But I didn't learn anything with any clarity.
this woman seems so smart and nice.
I agree with this statement.
I can't tell you how much I would love to spend an a few minutes with her. I have such a huge passion for lasers and laser physics, I just don't know the best path to take to get me to the place I want to be, developing lasers.
Awe that kid was just so happy to be there, absolutely adorable :)
I love how they value different kinds of people participating in every video
It doesn’t seem she explains things very well
same thought.
Thought the same!!! If I was the kid I would had walked away thinking that the register will cut my items and burn my skin off!!! Not clear at all
Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
by the 5th level the explanation becomes a conversation i love that
"I don't have a cat".
Well, we can't have that, can we? Somebody get that girl a cat so she can laser her.
Please , add a 6 level for people like me-dumbs
A zeroth level you mean?
Sound Speed! I mean, maybe the zeroth level is them introducing themself. It truly doesn’t increase your knowledge of lasers, perfect for 0 level
This is an great episode in an awesome series. There are so many fields and experts out there. There should be more episodes and diverse ones too.
It's actually an unclear, unhelpful episode in a pretty good series. At what points in the video did you hear her clearly explain how a laser works? I missed that. I found it half a dozen other videos, but not this one.
I love these series.. KEEP THEM COMING!!!!!
I can see both experts' dedication.
I wish they would've gotten into why lasers were cool / what applications they hope they'd have, like what is the point? I loved the contribution the grad student had about isolating and eliminating cancer cells!
Im a laser expert because i watch styropyro
You spelt laser wrong boomer
When the only laser in your house is 2.5w death ray
Im not a boomer i’m gen z and i cant spell (i’m 13)
@Styropyro Styropyro!
@@vertex3243 sadly for you, that's not gen z
These series deserve waaaay more attention
She is amazing, so smart, articulate and confident! and she absolutely killed it in that red dress
Yesssss finally another one of those videos!
The college student didn't learn anything. She was completely confused
Maybe because she asked for math, and got a slinky! 😑
@@giantworm4699 Yeah, it was hard to understand her explanations either way. She's a genius but not the best teacher perhaps.
I think it’s very interesting seeing how experts relay information to people with no knowledge. I think somebody with this level of expertise has such an intuitive understanding of their subject that even the simplifications can be hard to understand because things that are to most people difficult and dense concepts for the lay person are as intuitive as standing and walking. It’s really fantastic to see people of such stature in their field so their best to relay the insights they feel are most fundamental to their understanding to a wide spectrum of ages and education.
After a long time without skipping completed a video on CZcams, excellent way to explain about lasers, this is how a learned person explains his stuff, completely thrilled especially last two sections.
Do a 5 levels for acting please
"I particularly like high-intensity lasers"
Yeah of course! Are there a lot of laser scientists out there who really dig low intensity lasers?
Depending on your application, you sometimes don't need a high intensity. There are cases where you only need a special wavelength or an extremely narrow spectrum. So I guess there are experts for these kinds of lasers
Quantum optics to study the behaviour of single photon beams has really cool applications in quantum computing and entanglement. This is in contrast to a high intensity laser where there are so many photons it doesn't even make sense to refer to them anymore.
She kinda has a Nobel prize in that field but who cares right?
@@hs9577 - She's made it a point to let everyone know. lol
Yes, physicists who study ultra-cold atoms use ultra-low powered lasers to minimize the speed of atoms those last few milikelvin.
I just saw her speak at AUPAC 2020, she's incredible, easily the smartest person in the room
Just brilliant and inspiring! Thank you!
-Brings out "Teen"
-Kid is Twelve
"What part about the definition of teen did you not understand Wired?"
I really love these types of videos
Fascinating !! Keep these videos coming :)
The manufacturing processes pictured at 5:00 and 6:34 are not lasers, but plasma. Plasma cutting utilizes a high current/low voltage signal that ionizes a focused stream of gas (typically compressed oxygen or air) which phases into the fourth state of matter (plasma). There's also a shielding gas to prevent turbulence, typically compressed air.
Dr Strickland seems like such an amazing person! She really reminds me of the teacher I had when I studied lasers at universtity. My teacher was also really great at explaining difficult subjects in a easy way, and she had (she still has) such a passion for teaching and science on all levels. And also being a Canadian! I truly hope that she and Dr Strickland would meet at some point!
she teaches that kid the same way my teacher tried to teach me in high school and then wondered why our class was behind come the end of the year
Spot on.
Amazing! Love this series❣️
I like it when you turn on high intensity q switched and they pop the air! So cool.
Aperture Science... We do what we must because, we can.
2:58
Professor Strickland: We actually do surgery with lasers
Girl: *Visible confusion*
my absolute fav series
16:45 Break the vacuum? What does that mean, and is it a good idea?
It means "ionizing" the vacuum with electric fields so strong, that an electron is pulled out of the Dirac sea, creating an electron positron pair, an analogy to dielectric breakdown of say air. However the Dirac sea picture is problematic, because it does not explain anti-bosons, as bosons do not follow the Pauli Exclusion principle necessary for the electron Dirac sea. And then there's also the question of spin conservation.
In modern physics, it has a better explanation known as pair production, where two photons are converted into an electron and positron. The photons have to get very close for this to happen, and so you are more likely to see it in sufficiently intense light. They also call it "photon-photon" scattering, because light can scatter off of the electron and positron after they are momentarily created, so it appears as though light is scattering off of light.
It's not going to destroy the universe, because as soon as electrons and positrons are created, they are attracted to each other and will annihilate each other to return to conditions we began with. It's not the same as the "false vacuum" idea, where the vacuum as we know it might decay to a lower "true" ground state and destroy everything in the universe.
@@cryora Thanks for that detailed answer, and for reassuring me that it's not going to destroy everything in the universe. Is it an energy density that is great enough to create a miniature black hole though?
What is the name of the limit she mentions?
@@cavalrycome No, black holes are formed due to large amounts of mass packed into a small point, so large that gravity overcomes the strong bonds that give nuclei their structure. You may be able to drive nuclear reactions with intense lasers, but in that case, the nuclei will tend to explode outward, rather than inward. To force nuclei together is very difficult, because you need inward uniform pressure everywhere, otherwise the collection of particles would burst out of regions of low pressure (imagine squeezing a water balloon with your hand, eventually the water balloon will burst through the gaps between your fingers). This is a difficulty that scientists working on nuclear fusion are discovering. Miniature black hole creation using this approach is orders of magnitude more difficult, especially since you have so little of the main ingredient necessary for black holes, which is mass. The most energetic particle collisions (which occur in outer space and are a lot more energetic than even the most advanced particle colliders) do not come close to creating miniature black holes.
@@mmarcelocarnaval The Schwinger Limit.
I go to the university (university of Waterloo) she works at!! 💛🖤
the school is a trap
How? Could you explain because I plan on going here for engineering
@@nabihah2674 hahahha
DaDorn666 ..??
@@XtraBrad you rang?
"Laser expert explains..."
Last Level: Laser expert gets a whole lecture
Absolutely love this content. Thank you.
White Castle expert analyzes Harold and Kumar’s metabolism
Cow dung.
I have a BS in Physics. Electromagnetics is my favorite! How does a 12 year old understand "the excited state" of an electron?
Feuiger - Remember adolescence when you made yourself, um, excited sometimes?
I surprised that laser eye surgery, the types of laser that is used within it and its effects on the eye didn't come up as a topic. I would have thought it to be a big part if the commercialisation of lasers specifically within the cosmetic industry... I'm also a big nerd and would love to hear more on this topic.
"and the next time you're at the grocery store, take a look at the red"
Well that's one way to blind a child
While I didn't fully understand everything her and her colleague were discussing, in particular some of the acronyms being used, with a few follow up questions and maybe an hour or so of comprehension, I could fully understand it. Where we significantly differ is in the practical application of that knowledge. I would not know the first thing about how to apply that to an actual laser, although it would be very interesting to tag along sometime.
Did anyone notice the last guy talk about "Aperture Science" hahahaha
"We do what we must, because we can." :)
I was looking for this comment!
_[Also, first time I typed that sentence. Yay! Milestone!]_
>"Teen"
>Gets a 12 year old
It fits the definition perfectly. Over 10, under 20.
There should've been 6 levels: kid, teen, college student, grad student, expert, and finally Styropyro.
Didn't read any comments or the description. Got to 10:18, and was like ... wait ... is this Donna Strickland?!?!???? OMFG. Thanks for changing our world, and thanks for taking the time to make laser physics that much more accessible to everyone with this video.
And thanks for your gratuitous use of props! (-: