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Another great idea for an intro mechanics lab.
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Includes a great lab-porn picture of the laser in action.
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Ooh…that laser picture IS pretty. Makes me wish my lab had more lasers.
the laser beam’s power is concentrated to a 1.3-micron speck about 100th the diameter of a human hair. A human hair is about 100 microns wide.
1) Give the folks a digital micrometer and have them do some measurements. Any hair 100 microns in diameter probably isn’t of human origin. 60 microns is thick (round black straight coarse beard). It is also an opportunity for obtaining a fiducial RCH (ask a machine shop old fart).
2) It’s not the ratio of spot diameters, it’s the ratio of spot areas. Airy circles are left as an exercise for the alert reader.
Diversity: Skimming the top 10% of the bottom 10%.
We need an RSS feed devoted to lab pics, that would be just awesome. Your daily optical bench, your daily vacuum pump, etc.