Laser Light | Behrman House Publishing

Laser Light

LET THERE BE LIGHT!

Surgeons use lasers to make painless incisions and to repair damaged eyes and other organs. It takes a laser pulse merely 5 billionths of a second to remove 0.2 microns of eye tissue.
CDs and DVDs use lasers to read music and video signals stored as digital codes. The laser in your CD player reads 44,100 microscopic indentations on a music CD each second.

WHAT IS A LASER?: There are about 100 different kinds of atoms that make up everything in the entire universe, from the seat of your pants to the surface of the moon. These atoms are constantly moving, vibrating, and rotating at different energy levels. If you pump an atom with more energy using heat or electricity, it moves from its regular energy level to what's called an excited level. When the atom eventually returns to its original state, it releases its energy as a particle of light, called a photon. A laser controls how energized atoms release their photons.; Laser light is coherent, meaning that its light waves move in step with one another, like marchers in a parade. Because the light waves move in unison, laser light can be tightly focused (more than 200 holes can be drilled on the head of a pin) or travel over great distances. Laser beams have easily reached the moon and been reflected back to Earth. Regular light, like light given off by a flashlight, on the other hand, produces weak and diffuse light that is released in different directions, like sloppy and chaotic parade marchers that are out of step.; THE LIGHT OF TORAH; A laser is valuable as a source of light, heat, and power because its energy is concentrated in a straight line. Unlike a Hanukkah candle whose energy scatters and lessens the further it moves from its source, a laser beam remains strong and effective even miles and miles away. People often think that keeping the mitzvot of the Torah can be “constricting” or “confining.” However, we can learn from a laser that, in fact, the opposite is true. When light energy isn’t bound, it quickly disappears. It is precisely the fact that laser light is restricted that gives it such potential for productive use. When you focus your energy on a mitzvah, it has the power to do great things and reach very far.

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Additional resources:

The Jerusalem Archaelogical Park - Virtual Model Panorama http://www.archpark.org.il/panorama2.asp Reuven Weiser's Virtual Mikdash http://yucs.org/~rweiser/virtual_mikdash.shtml Jerusalem Temple - Women's Court http://www.bible-history.com/court-of-women/temple-sketch-womens-court_shg.jpg Moshiach Online's Tour of the Holy Temple http://moshiach.com/temple/classic