• Question: Wats the fastest thing you have taken a picture of using lazers.

    Asked by waldock to Tim on 27 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by yasrockangels.
    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 27 Jun 2012:


      I installed a system in Germany a couple of years ago where they were looking at plasma sprays. A plasma spray is a jet of charged particles (a little bit like the surface of the sun) that is used for spraying molten metal as a surface coating (i.e. like a sort of paint).
      The small particles of metal are shot into the back of the plasma jet and come out the front at about 1000metres/second. This is about 3 times the speed of sound and is the fastest thing that I’ve ever worked on.
      One of my colleagues did some work a few years ago to take pictures of explosives just as they were beginning to explode, and that might have been faster but I don’t know how fast.

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