Light - lasers and holograms

If you were asked what is brightest most powerful Light of all. You might say sunlight. You would be wrong. A laser's light is the brightest light ever known. A laser produces a thin beam of coloured light which can burn though steel or so straight and narrow that it can be aimed at a tiny mirror on the moon that is 384401km (238855miles) away.

A scientist called Theodore Maiman built the first laser in 1960. Lasers today use gases, which gives a low power beam - good for delicate surgary. Powerful lasers produce beams with solid rods of crystal!

A hologram is a photograph made with laser light. When you look at a hologram, you see a three-dimensional view of the object, just as the real thing.

Splitting a laser beam in two makes holograms. One beam goes straight to the photographic film, the other hits the object of the hologram first breaking up its pattern of light waves.

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