WBLN: Frickin' LASERs

Everything is bigger in Texas. This LASER is no exception. Scientists at The University of Texas recently turned this petawatt bad-boy on. In case you're wondering, that's one quadrillion watts of power, which in a one-trillionth-of-a-second burst is "2,000 times more powerful than all the power plants in the United States"

Sounds cool, right? But what is it for, you hesitantly ask? Well, here's a quote from the project manager: "You'd have to go out into space and hang out with an exploding star to observe what we plan to observe here in Texas."

Oh the stars at night are big and bright (KABOOM THWAAPP) deep in the heart of Texas! Seriously, if the quote above doesn't scare you to death, maybe you should read it again.

Nearly Infinite

I saw the term "nearly infinite" today, and thought to myself "Wow, that's really stupid".

How would you describe a number near infinity? 10,000? Huh-uh. 100,000,000,000? No, not even close. 2? Wrong again. Seroiusly, someone please explain the concept of "nearly infinite" to me.

While doing a quick google of the phrase, I did come across another blog about the subject with some very interesting replies from the blog's readers. Check them out, if you want.