Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science...ion/index.html says it's been achieved in the laboratory. Which is a long way from being practical, but it does refute your statement that 'light and lasers simply do not work that way'. Of course maybe CNN got it wrong? I do recall the news stories about cold fusion a few years ago, but until proven otherwise I'll take CNN's reports over your opinions.
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Reports about science and technology from the general media almost always get things wrong-- sometimes only a few small things, sometimes major blunders. In every field of science in which I have some passing familiarity, I find mistakes in almost every article written in popular media by general reporters. I'm confident that they are just as mistaken in areas that I don't know enough to notice them.
This is how science reporting works:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1623
A laser is a tight beam of light. You do not see that beam unless it is passing through a medium that scatters some of that light. Think of the very common red laser pointers-- you see the dot where the laser beam touches a surface, you do not see the path of the beam through air unless there is smoke, steam, or some other type of fine particles suspended in the air. Now, with much more powerful red lasers and with somewhat more powerful green and blue lasers (wavelengths the eye is more sensitive to) and if the room is pretty dark, you can make out a beam. You have to have DAMN powerful lasers to make beams strongly visible in normal daytime lighting. I'm talking about lasers that burn skin and boil eyeballs with a moment's contact.
And even then, we are talking about a beam-- a beam which will continue on into infinity until it has lots it's focus too far to be visible. Not a volume pixel. The ability to make a laser show up as a single pixel in a volume of open air, not showing up as a beam before or afterward, is a FANTASY. You will never, ever, ever have any type of display that displays real, 3-dimensional images in open air. It is not how light physics works. There are ways to make things that look kinda-sorta like how we expect a hologram to look, but they involve rotating mirrors and bulky equipment-- nothing that you will ever have in a flat device that will fit in your pocket.
Here's an interesting discussion:
http://holography.ning.com/profiles/...-be-lovin-this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holograms