Putting out fireworks with a laser: this is what – apparently – a video went viral after New Year’s Eve and is still continuing to run to the amazement of many users. The video depicts a green laser chasing gods Bengal shot into the sky: the moment the light beam reaches the rockets, they explode and go out instantly. The question is therefore: is it possible that a laser can stop pyrotechnic devices? The answer is: Absolutely not. At least, not with a conventional laser like those commonly found on the market. Most likely the video is not a fake, but is constructed to “delude” us that it is the laser that causes the explosion of the flares.
Green lasers of that type, with high brightness, are used for example by astronomical guides to point to celestial objects in the sky. They have beams that easily exceed the 10 km longup to the beginning of the stratosphere so to speak. Lasers like these are therefore absolutely capable of reaching the flares we see in the video. However, we are talking about tools with a power typically of 5 wattsremarkable for a laser but absolutely insufficient to cause any kind of effect to a pyrotechnic device, especially at a certain distance.
So what are we seeing in the video? Very simply, a timing game. The person holding the laser points it at the flares at the right time, giving the impression that it is the laser that makes them explode, when in reality they would have exploded anyway, as is the very nature of these pyrotechnic rockets. The proof? It’s in the video itself: we notice in fact that there are flares that explode calmly without any “intervention” from the laser.
