this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Laser Beams Deflected Off of Nothing but Air for First Time Ever in Breakthrough Patent Pending Process - The Debrief::An international team of scientists report that they have successfully used acoustics to deflect laser beams in an engineering first.

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[–] Seasm0ke 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] sir_reginald 52 points 10 months ago (7 children)

considering the lab experiment with just one laser required a sound level of about 140 decibels that consume 20 gigawatts, I don't think holodecks are going to be a practical device.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 10 months ago (1 children)

WHAT DID YOU SAY? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER MY HOLO-WAIFU

[–] FartsWithAnAccent 3 points 10 months ago

"NOTICE ME SENPAI!!1"

[–] Seasm0ke 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Great points, but you know how things go. Proof of concept is a bloated laboratory implementation, then the tech gets smaller and more efficient over time. Next thing you know the sound is outside of human hearing range and the laser projector is fitted to a drone.

[–] echo64 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

More realisticly how things go, experimental research only works in lab conditions, clickbait article suggests it's coming next year, people make giant assumptions, people lose faith in science because the promised thing doesn't arrive

[–] Seasm0ke 5 points 10 months ago

Lol probably, we are definitely more on track for cyberpunk or idiocracy than star trek post scarcity socialist utopia

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

According to the article it's already using ultrasound.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Ultrasound at 140 dB which can still seriously damage hearing, you just don’t hear it happen.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

So they can only do holodeck simulations of EDM shows.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

It may be interesting to see how humidity and temperature influence the laser (or even other gases as mentioned in the article)

[–] surewhynotlem 2 points 10 months ago

So like, ten years at most

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It was the laser that's 20 gigawatts, according to the article, which is notable because such a laser is hard to redirect.

As for the viability of holodecks... Obviously the rest of your points are still valid, but one can only hope that someday we'll figure something out, the technology being impossible/unviable right now doesn't mean it'll stay that way. And this seems to show a theoretical possibility of manipulating light mid-air in the necessary way.