After all that work on medical lasers......

[Dr Mordrid]

some guy comes up with an optical surgery device based on sunlight, a reflecting telescope and some fiberoptics at .67% the cost of medical lasers

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/CuttingEdge/cuttingedge020927.html

Most kids who ever experimented with sunlight using their parents magnifying glass could have patented this but oh no.....

IMHO this would be a boon to providing optical ablative surgical techniques to poor countries and rural communities that can't afford $150k USD for a surgical laser.

Dr. Mordrid

[Greebe]

and maybe they will avoid cutting half their tongue in half like what happened to the wifes co worker a few days ago

[Wombat]

Great, now we'll have same-day surgery with a rain date

[Dr Mordrid]

No matter the device you need a competent operator

Dr. Mordrid

[Wombat]

Oh god.

For $1,000, this is almost an expensive geek toy. If it got into the wrong hands though it would be a real nuisance. And I thought those ****oles with the penlights were annoying....

[efty]

Hey I have a pen light!!!

[GNEP]

Hmmm... just last year I was thinking of doing the very same thing, but to pipe natural light into a room with no windows. Concentrate it into the fibre optic cable, move it to the room, and then diffuse again onto a ceiling "light".

Just need to add a tracking device so the mirror tracks the sun, and you have the proper frequency spectrum of sunlight helping you feel good!

(That's if the fibre optic cable transmits the spectrum in its entirety - I doubt it would but it's a few too many years since I studied it)

gnep

[Novdid]

Too much time on your hands, eh???

[GNEP]

Well, I never quite built the thing...

[Wombat]

Many people already have. I've seen them in pictures of new Japanese architecture. Skylights in the middle of the building

[GNEP]

Cool.

[Greebe]

I've seen a few of those pics too Rob... one showcases the worlds largest tomato plant (hydroponically grown) in it's lobby.

A tracking device is rather easy to make, capable of most any high school student. Focusing multiple large Fesnel lens's in a diasy pattern (one surrounded by 6 more of equal size) onto a massive glass fibre optic cable bundle does the trick. Having a water cooled cold filter prevents damage to the glass fibers this light is focused on. The remainder IR spectrum is rejected by the glass's wavelength and you end up with cold clean broad spectrum white light that still has a decient balance of UV in it.

[GNEP]

So does anyone have a link to those pics?

[dave m]

Is this the sort of thing you were after GNEP?


Dave

[RedRed]

Thats a 'Light Pipe'.... I was going to get one for an extension in my house.... I think the fibre is a more eligant,if much more expensive solution..... (you can bend it and its of a finer total diameter....)

Regards
RedRed