Scott Lowther is wrong!

For some reason Google gave me an error message when I tried to respond
directly, so I've responded to Lowther here.

Williamknowsbest wrote:
The important thing to ask is information
destroyed when light is scattered off the clouds?

Scott Lowther wrote

An irrelevant question.

No its not since this phase information is communicated to the phase
conjugate lens which then directs light energy back along those light
paths that make it out of a cloud of material.

The question is whether the inevitable
scattering is goign to:
A: provide a nuisance or danger
B: prevent the system from being useful

Scattering will not cause the system to fail provided phase information
from the probe beam makes it through the scattering medium and provding
the scattering medium is in pretty much the same state when the power
pulse moves back through it.


Have you ever noticed that under heavy cloud cover, it gets kinda dark?

That's not the issue. Its not totally dark under clouds.



Sigh.

You miss the point I see.

The details of how much useful energy can be beamed under the wide
range of cloud phenomenon will be worked out in practice.

I await your demonstration of shooting kilowatt-class lasers through
thick opaque clouds with no scattering.


Your added requirement that there be no scattering ....


"Added requirement?" Look back through these posts. That's been the
*only|* requirement I've mentioned.

Right, you brought it up as if it were important. I've been trying to
explain to you WHY it need not be important. You have uniformly
REFUSED to understand the physics involved as to why its not important.
lol.

Cars don't. That's the end user.

The car doesn't care if the laser beams come from street lamp reformers
nearby...


Ah, yes, I forgot that Laserville is going to have hundreds of
trillions of kilowatt-class lasers on poles.

Nonsense. The world today uses oil at a rate of about 6 TW. There are
19,403,061 km of paved roadways in the world. With 50 reformers per km
of roadway is fewer than 1 billion refomers even if ALL roads are
hooked up this way.


Where? Where is your demo of a visible-light laser that doesn;t scatter
in dust, smoke, fog, cloud?

No, that is what you in your ignorance think is required. What is
required is only that a PORTION of the energy passing through a cloud
NOT be scattered with loss of information!

Astonishing bullcrap.

Nope!

Let me put it to you this way: if you set up a system that lights up
clouds, smoke, mist, fog, etc

In the Infra-red

to the level where it is distracting (not
to mention directly dangerous),

How?

you will be sued out of existence as
your invention causes car crash after car crash.

Nonsense. Sending a flash or a million flashes of infrared energy into
a cloud will have no discernable effect on the cloud.


No hand waving, Bill. Cough up the videos.

I have given you article after article in peer reviewed literature,
Here are a few texts on the subject. I'm sure the authors have videos
you can view

Have *you* ever seen a laser pass through thick clouds without
scattering?

How many times must I say this before you actually read it with
understanding? A laser originates on the power receiver. It sends a
probe beam to a power transmitter on the other side of a scattering
medium. This beam is scattered. Totally.

However, some of the photons from the probe beam make it through and
arrive at the conjugate optical lens. These photons interact with the
laser energy flowing through this lens and create a holographic effect
that causes a portion of the laser's energy to follow the precise path
the arriving photons took, back to the reciever. This returning energy
is scattered, but because its phase is conjugate to the arriving
photons' phase, the scattering medium scatters the photons into a beam
directed precisely at the reciever!

However, now that you've wisely stepped away from visibel wavelengths,
continue the drift towards microwaves, and you'll be there.

Nope - haven't gone there. The apetures are too big and the energy
densities too low.

Hogwash.

Microwaves have wavelengths that are thousands to millions of times
larger so the apeture in space must be nearly as large as the collector
areas, and the beams are HUGE, and the energy levels very low. So, you
end up with very big systems on orbit and end up with very big
stationary receivers on the ground with microwaves. This is, all very
costly when compared to lasers which have tiny emitters on orbit that
are tens of meters in size, and miniscule receivers on the ground that
are centimeters in size, and energy densities are thousands to millions
of times greater!

There's all kinds of territory availabel for big-ass
rectennae.

Leave it to you to bring up something I'm NOT talking about and act as
if that's what I'm talking about. lol.

and
Get your terawatts from that, run the power to TDP plants,
generate petroleum from electricity and garbage and sewage, and you
have "free" power forever without destroying the environment and
needing tyo upend the entire planetary transportation infrastructure
(as your system would require).

This is very similar to the system I am installing in Indonesia, and
have plans to install in the US, except here, I'm getting power
directly from sunlight using ultra-low-cost solar panels of my own
design. I'm collecting energy with solar panels in deserts, piping in
water, and piping out hydrogen gas. I'm selling hydrogen gas to coal
fired electric plants in exchange for coal. And I'm taking extra
hydrogen and converting coal to high-grade oil using my variant of the
Bergius process - wherein over half the energy comes from sunlight.

But we're talking about possible space based systems here. I am not
against terrestrial solar power. Nor am I against space based power -
whether maser based or laser based. Maser has its place, I've
consistently said that throughout. Laser has some things to recommend
it as well. Especially in the infrared ranges - and maybe even in the
UV ranges.

Quite a lot simpler than your insane system, too.

No system is simple when you look at the details. When you hop in your
car and go get a burger, you don't think about things like Maillard
reactions and tire pronation. But these are just a few of a long list
of details that have to work perfectly for you to enjoy your burger
safely and reliably.


How would you like
to be driving around and have one hit you in the eyes?

No.


That's what
you're recommending.


No I'm not. I'm not proposing using visible light. I'm not proposing
shining a light in anyone's eyes.


Thought experiment: what happens when your IR laser strikes a water
droplet and, in the milliseconds it takes your satellite hundreds of
miles away to catch up, reflects and focusses the IR laser into the
drivers eye? Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's harmless.


The statistics of photon populations show that the scattered light in
this case would be far too dim to cause any sort of damage more than a
meter from the beam. Sorry.


Clearly you do not understand the situation.

I certainly do. LOL.

Mind if I shine my
10,000,000 candle-power lamp into your eyes while you drive?

YES - I WOULD! lol.


Oh, is that it? Jesus Scott. Aren't you embarassed to keep missing
the goddamned point time and time again? Sheez.

Scot, explain WHY you believe a milliwatt infrared probe laser
scattered through a cloud would cause any problems whatever to a driver
on the ground?


You haven't gotten it because you haven't read the references with any
understanding. Otherwise you wouldn't ask the questions you do.

You are the one who does not understand the very basics of lasers that
any child with a laser pointer can figure out.


that you believe scattered light from a normal laser makes a damned bit
of difference to those photons that make it from the probe beam to the
conjugate optical lens proves...



that you are using strawmen, and avoiding the real questions.

Nope! I've explained the physics and optics of the process time and
time again, and you have uniformly refused to listen. Let me say it
again.

A silicon based PV receiver is set up to operate at very high
intensities and very efficiently at the bandgap energy of silicon,
1,108 nm. A silicon based milliwatt level probe beam flashes on and an
electronic shutter switches on, so that the probe beam is reflected off
the PV wafer and expands out of the power receiver heading toward a
conjugate optical lens. This lens interacts with the probe beam so that
a conjugate beam is formed which fires back PRECISELY in the direction
of the arriving probe beam - as described here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonline...se_conjugation

Now, the interesting thing is that the conjugate beam can send energy
back to the receiver EVEN THROUGH DISTORTING MEDIA! As in the figure
shown.

In the case of SCATTERING MEDIA - especially scattering media that are
effcient - like water droplets (that's why clouds are white and smoke
clouds are dark) - the portion of the scattered probe beam that arrives
at the conjugate lens provides information to the conjugate laser so
that the scattering media scatter the return beam into a power beam
aimed back at the receiver!

Now, the probe beam scatters normally. The return beam also scatters.
But the scattering media scatters the random photons arriving at the
cloud INTO a return beam!

There are limits to this process. These are not the limits Scott talks
about. But they are there - and any reasonable analysis shows that in
most places and in most situation, a system can be devised that allows
energy beaming in the laserville mold -

You have repeated failed to
demonstrate that.


I have so.


Yes, you have so failed.


Again you reading ability is questioned. I have given you reference
after reference after reference - which you have either uniformly
ignored, or failed to understand.


You have failed to provide a single reference that actually addressed
the concerns I've raised.

I have addressed in detail, time and time again, why your concern over
scattering is misplaced. First, I'm dealing with infrared - which is
invisible. Second, the scattered laser is very weak. Third, the power
laser is scattered, but by operation of phase conjugate optics, the
scattering events are the reversed version of the probe beam
scattering, so the scattered power beam is scattered INTO a return beam
through the scattering medium.


Shine a laser into smoke or fog and make the beam not
visible, Bill. Eliminate scattering.

Scattering need not be eliminated

Bull****. Even a 1% loss of a visible -

Not if its invisible to the naked eye. And not if its scattered back
to the receiver. Conjugate optical processes in my system may be said
to reduce the effects of scattering, but actually both laser beams are
fully scattered by the medium.

-or even IR - laser in the
kilowatt class is still a fairly bright "beam" of light standing out in
front of God and everybosdy, distracting every driver for miles.

Here's a 10 kilowatt CO2 laser that has been caught firing dozens of
times. Please point out the beam you say exists - fact is, no beam is
visible. The only visible portion of energy is the plasma bursts in
the propulsion system. Sheez.

http://www.eng.rpi.edu/mane/lightcra...t2fullsize.jpg

There are laws against such things.

What things exactly? You have yet to describe anything that would
really happen. LOOK AT THE REFERENCES SCOTT! Save yourself the
monumental embarassment of being wrong YET AGAIN!

Look at how the distorting medium in the figure on conjugate optics,
corrects the conjugate beam. NOW, look at the PHOTOGRAPH of a an
OPERATING 10 KW beam - and see that it is TOTALLY INVISIBLE! The only
visible portion is the plasma formed by the propulsive element there.


So in effect, you are adding
"felonious act" to the list of problems with your system.

You suffer from an overheated imagination uninformed by any real
knowledge of what you're talking about.



Sheez - how many times does a guy have to say something before he's
heard around here?

Oh, just say it once.

Well, I did all that above, which again, is the same thing I've been
saying for TEN YEARS! lol.

You trotted out this drivel years ago,

If you would actually take care to truly understand what I'm talking
about - you'd see that YOU were the source of drivel in this
conversation.

and we're
still laughing about it.

The laughter of idiots like yourself doesn't concern me in the least.

Notice all the posters leaping to your defense?

Posts don't define reality sir. Experiments do. You would do well to
remember that.