Some
Jefferson residents awoke last Thursday morning to large clouds of smoke
and flames billowing from the grain elevator on the north edge of town.
Others were completely unaware of the scene, however, as the flames
cleared up almost as quickly as they started. A perfectly round hole had
been seared through the elevator. Local police and firefighters
immediately began an investigation that was to culminate Saturday in the
arrest of three area youths, whose identities are being withheld.The source of the destruction was the laser the teenagers, Matt, Tom, and Jason, were building for the annual high school science fair. It seems that after they constructed it, they aimed it north and thought they'd give it a "test drive". "The accessible emissions limit emitted through the aperture created excessive joules. We were worried about the nominal ocular hazard distance caused by the beam diameter, when in fact the irradiance created an aversion response with excessive radiant power, based on specular reflection," stated Matt.
When asked to put that in layman's terms, he responded, "It was just too damned strong."
Spencer Straight, 04-20-2011