Lasers seem like something straight out of science fiction but, in reality, it’s not all weapons and space ships. Rather, lasers have become to be known for their practical purposes in business as well as science. For instance, lasers are used in an assortment of fields such as medicine, art, business. They are also found in the home, store, work, and pretty much anywhere you go except maybe in the middle of the wilderness.
The laser is even found on the remotest corners of the earth. It may be surprising to find out that lasers have a place in Antarctica using Lidar technology to research the earth’s atmosphere and weather patterns. This article will focus on the modern applications of the laser as well as how they can save you time.
Modern Uses of Lasers
Here are just a few examples of what lasers can do in a modern setting.
- Metal Cutting
- Hair Removal
- Eyesight Correction
- Cancer Treatment
- Engraving Materials
- Research and Education
- Bar code Reader
- Welding
- Fiber Optics
- Optical Storage
- Photography
- Printing
You can find more details here.
How Much Time Do Lasers Really Save?
The uses of lasers are underrated and underacknowledged, but the truth is, their presence in the twenty-first century has greatly accelerated time-consuming tasks, saving not just days, but months of a person’s life. For example, on average, a woman will spend seventy-two days of her life shaving. That’s time that could otherwise be spent doing something more productive and even a reduction in wasted fresh water, a resource that’s becoming increasingly scarce in places like California. Laser hair removal eliminates needless minutes spent in the shower. Also, imagine if you went to the store and the cashier had to manually enter every single item in your cart by hand. Imagine how long the lines would be! With the help of lasers, it can essentially bypass this step and get to where we want to go faster.
How Lasers Work
It’s already known that lasers can save everyone time in the shower and the store, but how does it all work? Well, a laser amplifies electromagnetic radiation to produce a continuous stream of highly concentrated light. As you know, light interacts with many variables in the environment. For instance, the hair and skin are both impacted by light. Laser hair technology removes hair surprisingly not through the laser’s light, but the heat it emits, damaging the hair follicle to prevent regrowth. The same thing goes for scanning bar codes. The light from the laser is reflected off the black and white strips of the bar code, and this is what the sensor detects and is able to read.
Conclusion
All in all, lasers are a technology that has infiltrated our lives in the most unexpected ways. A hundred years ago, who would have thought that lasers could permanently replace shaving, saving hundreds of hours over a woman’s lifetime or that they could be used to study and predict weather patterns? The possibilities and uses of lasers are still being discovered and, one day, lasers might even become a household essential. Can you think of any ways the laser has yet to be applied?
