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Re: Laser Pointer Danger?

At 10:55 1/24/98 -0500, you wrote:

...[Was] the "temporary blindness" [] similar to the
after-effects that we receive for a short time after looking directly
into the sun or any other bright light for that matter.?...

Herb Gottlieb

Let's try for a back of the envelope estimate.
Sunlight:
Conservative power density at ground level at low altitude
(say) 700 watts/m^2

Laser Diode:
20 mA at 3 V = 60 mW input.
Output in a 3 mm diam beam.
The conversion efficiency is crucial: I take as a wild guess, 10%

The laser power density then amounts to 850 watts/m^2 ???

This not very sophisticated estimate seems to show the laser
pointer could be compared with a sun mirror glinting in the eye.

Hmmm...
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK