Light and Lasers

Lasers, as you probably know, produce intense radiation using a specific quantum mechanical mechanism ("Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation" --- LASER). Whether the laser is used for surgery or not, the mechanism is the same. Larger lasers can produce more energy. (Actually, I'm not sure the Star Trek characters are using "lasers" at all --- I thought they called them "phasers", in which case I haven't the slightest idea was 24th(?) century technology they're using!)

[Editors note December 2018: In early episodes of Star Trek, they did in fact use lasers as weapons. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, quickly realized that viewers were beginning to know too much about what a laser was capable of and they changed to using the "phaser". In the show it is stated that a phaser actually releases a beam of fictional particles know as nadions instead of photons as in a laser.]

The color doesn't matter much to the strength --- it's, for example, the size (amount of light emitting material that matters), and other attributes of the laser that matter. One can change the color by using different materials for generating the light. A helium-neon laser generates the familiar red laser light, other materials can generate green laser light, etc.

I'm not sure, but laser light can be pinpointed at specific small regions that a knife either cannot reach, or that a knife can't do a fine enough (small enough) job on. An example: a laser can be used through the lens of the eye to treat problems on the eye's retina (however, I'm not sure of the details of this, or any other procedure). I recently saw a TV news report where a laser was being used to remove skin that had been damaged by burns. The surgeon said the laser was more precise than a knife, and resulted in less scarring after the patient healed.

That's not too far away. I don't think there will be any great changes by then. However, surprises have a way of appearing without expectation!

[Editors note December 2018: Hopefully an update to this question will be coming soon.]

I don't know of any practical uses, although that doesn't mean there aren't any. Scientific uses include observational astronomy (there are sources of gamma rays in the Galaxy, and elsewhere), physics (nuclei emit gamma rays telling of their nuclear structure, gamma rays appear in accelerator experiments, etc.). It's gamma rays that are used in radiation treatments of cancer.

Besides the observation of UV in astronomy, UV is probably used in some medical treatment of skin conditions. Of course, solar UV, while not "used" for this purpose, does cause skin cancer when an individual is exposed to too much of it. UV can be used to sterilize things (abundant UV kills bacteria, and any other cells).

Infrared is also called heat rays. It is used to warm muscles, etc., during some treatments of medical conditions, or sports injuries, etc.

All radiation can probably cause some problems, in high enough doses. Its just that what consititutes "high enough" is different for each. Microwaves can literally "cook" you! (That's what a microwave oven does!). But you need a high intensity. Even visible light, if intense enough, can blind you (even if your eyes are shut). But we don't normally encounter such high levels of microwaves or visible light.

Try searching the internet for any pages that contain the works "gamma rays", or other such words and phrases. A nice search engine to use is the Webcrawler. Just go to that site; the instructions for use a simple.

[Editor's note December 2018: Wikipedia did not exist when this FAQ was first written, the article on gamma rays is a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray. For a more advanced look into gamma rays, you can search scholarly papers for new information by using www.scholar.google.com.]