13 lines
638 B
Plaintext
13 lines
638 B
Plaintext
software laser
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n. An optical laser works by bouncing photons back and forth between two
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mirrors, one totally reflective and one partially reflective. If the lasing
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material (usually a crystal) has the right properties, photons scattering
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off the atoms in the crystal will excite cascades of more photons, all in
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lockstep. Eventually the beam will escape through the partially-reflective
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mirror. One kind of sorcerer's apprentice mode involving bounce message s
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can produce closely analogous results, with a cascade of messages escaping
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to flood nearby systems. By mid-1993 there had been at least two publicized
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incidents of this kind.
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