[time-nuts] Re: The Collapse of Puerto Rico’s Iconic Telescope [April 5th, 2021 New Yorker]

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

On 3/31/2021 11:57 AM, Lux, Jim wrote:

> 
> In some ways it's like high power laser labs. It's not the direct beam 
> you worry about - nobody is going to put their hand in the beam path. 
> It's the stray reflection when something gets bumped and falls across 
> the optical bench and reflects a stray beam at 0.01% power into your eyes.

I did consulting at Coherent Laser Group working on CO2 lasers.
In that lab, actually, many people had the misfortune of accidentally
putting their hand or arm in the invisible beam.  You could see the
scars on their arms.  There were also accidents where the laser
burned the ceiling, etc.  Very scary place to work; fortunately,
I never got injured.  They made lasers up to 1kW optical power out.

Rick N6RK