Lasers

“For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” [2.Corinthians 4:6]

In 1960, an American physicist with Hughes Aircraft Corporation constructed the first working laser from a ruby crystal rod. Since that time, the laser has revolutionized every realm of modern life. The word LASER is actually an acronym for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.” (I think I prefer LASER!) With an ordinary beam of light, the photons vibrate and scatter in every direction, whereas a laser beam is a tightly focused and perfectly aligned beam of light. A laser beam is produced when light bounces back and forth between two mirrors with a special medium, like ruby crystals, between them. This causes all the photons, particles of light energy, to vibrate in exactly the same synchronized phase, like soldiers in a troop.

Today lasers are used in virtually every field, from communications and industry to medicine and military. Many modern devices, including bar code readers, DVD players, and printers, use lasers. These powerful beams of light can also transmit voice or data via fiber optic cables at much improved speed and capacity. Lasers have also been used to determine very precise measurements with great accuracy. The distance between Earth and the moon was measured with lasers to within one inch. In medicine, conventional eye surgery has almost been totally replaced by the miracle of lasers. In industry, lasers are used to cut, align, and measure with great precision.

Incredibly, lasers can also produce extreme cold. Normally, when you shine light at something it heats up. But under the right conditions, laser light will actually cool atoms! In laser cooling, the laser is tuned to such a frequency that atoms traveling toward the beam get slowed down. A number of criss-crossing laser beams create a trap for the atoms, which get slower and slower, and therefore colder and colder. With this technique, researchers have used lasers to reach temperatures of nearly absolute zero.

The extremes of heat and cold produced by laser light remind us of the words of Jesus to the church of Laodicea. “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot” (Revelation 3:15). When the laser light of the Holy Spirit shines on our hearts, we will either be energized for Jesus, or turn away in coldness and desolation.