{"id":4633,"date":"2010-04-23T10:42:22","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T10:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/23\/laser-smackdown-vote-for-the-m\/"},"modified":"2010-04-23T10:42:22","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T10:42:22","slug":"laser-smackdown-vote-for-the-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/23\/laser-smackdown-vote-for-the-m\/","title":{"rendered":"Laser Smackdown: Vote for the Most Amazing Laser Application"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1960, the first working laser was demonstrated, and promptly dubbed &#8220;a solution looking for a problem.&#8221; In the ensuing fifty years, lasers have found lots of problems to solve, but there has been no consensus about which of the many amazing applications of lasers is the <em>most<\/em> amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Now, in 2010, as we <a href=\"http:\/\/www.laserfest.org\/\">celebrate the anniversary of the laser<\/a>, we finally have the technology to definitively answer the question: radio-button polls on the Internet!<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\" src=\"http:\/\/static.polldaddy.com\/p\/3098217.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<noscript><br \/>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/answers.polldaddy.com\/poll\/3098217\/\">Which of the following is the most amazing application of a laser?<\/a><span style=\"font-size:9px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/polldaddy.com\/features-surveys\/\">Market Research<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>Each of the choices above links to a post I wrote here giving you the basic information about that application (I&#8217;ll reproduce the list below), so you can make an informed decision as to what the most amazing application of the laser is. Voting will remain open until next Sunday, May 2, with the ultimate winner announced on Monday, May 3rd. Whereupon everybody will have to acknowledge the winning application as <em>the Most Amazing Laser Application of All  Time<\/em>. Because, you know, that&#8217;s how these things work.<\/p>\n<p>So get reading, and get voting. One vote per computer per user, please&#8211; this is Serious Science.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The list of application posts, in chronological order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/02\/amazing_laser_application_1_li.php\">Cat toy\/ dog toy\/ laser light show<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/02\/amazing_laser_application_2_la.php\">Laser cooling\/ BEC<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/02\/amazing_laser_application_3_lu.php\">Lunar laser ranging<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a  href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/02\/amazing_laser_application_4_op.php\">Optical tweezers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/02\/amazing_laser_application_4_op_1.php\">Optical storage media (CD\/DVD\/Blu-Ray)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/amazing_laser_application_6_li.php\">LIGO<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/amazing_laser_application_7_te.php\">Telecommunications<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/amazing_laser_application_8_ho.php\">Holography<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/amazing_laser_application_9_fu.php\">Laser ignited fusion<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/amazing_laser_application_10_s.php\">Laser eye surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/amazing_laser_application_10_f.php\">Laser frequency comb\/ spectroscopy<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/amazing_laser_application_12_l.php\">Laser guide stars\/ adaptive optics<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1960, the first working laser was demonstrated, and promptly dubbed &#8220;a solution looking for a problem.&#8221; In the ensuing fifty years, lasers have found lots of problems to solve, but there has been no consensus about which of the many amazing applications of lasers is the most amazing. Now, in 2010, as we celebrate&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2010\/04\/23\/laser-smackdown-vote-for-the-m\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Laser Smackdown: Vote for the Most Amazing Laser Application<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,146,135,19,188,169,45,238,7,137,23,11,71,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-atoms_and_molecules","category-condensed_matter","category-experiment","category-laser_smackdown","category-lasers","category-medicine","category-optics","category-physics","category-polls","category-quantum_optics","category-science","category-space","category-technology","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}