The FLASH XASER: Massive Laser Zaps Einstein

At the end of the nineteenth century scientists thought they had all the answers.  They were spectacularly wrong, demonstrated by “The Ultraviolet Catasptrophe”: a light experiment which simply couldn’t be explained by the science of the day.  This lead to quantum mechanics, the particle-wave duality of light, and an entire new mode of science – which we’ve just broken again with a massive laser! The explanation of the ultraviolet catastrophe was the photon, the idea that light had a minimum unit whose energy was determined by its color – so in certain circumstances, you could shine as much red light as you wanted on something but no one photon would ever have enough energy to knock out an electron.  Instead you needed a higher frequency photon, one of which could knock out an electron (this was called the photoelectric effect).  Now scientists have used a German X-ray überlaser to blow Xenon atoms to pieces, and we need a new model again. One reason this effect hasn’t been observed before is the intensity of the X-ray radiation:  the FLASH XASER (which sounds like it should be battling Ming the Merciless) delivers ten quadrillion Watts of X-ray per square centimeter

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The FLASH XASER: Massive Laser Zaps Einstein

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