light is mysterious it's it's confused
some of the greatest scientists over the
years I mean it's a particle and it's
wave and even when you break it down to
that there's still more ways to describe
it and we still haven't fully described
light I built my first burning laser I
was just 14 and here I had this device
that could like light things on fire
with just light it feels like holding a
lightning ball in my hand
utilizing just these fundamental
properties of the universe to make these
crazy contraptions like a bunch of
science youtubers lot of us have been
dealing with these suspensions and
temporary bans on our channels a lot of
the people who do chemistry and science
videos get flagged as being too
dangerous and in fact if I were to get
one more strike against my accounts my
channel have been deleted when you
remove those kinds of videos there's
less kids are gonna get interested in
science
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[Applause]
some people like video games and and I
like raising Maas was my spare time and
I actually had this point out a youtube
comment once but so in said that mods
are my spirit animal and I you know at
first I think about you know because I
raised Moz it you know the simple
explanation but no Maas are attracted to
light you know so it's like it's it's
perfect you know because I mean I love
lasers I love lighting and I love mods
so it's like it's a perfect - fitting
spirit animal
oh dude stick yeah okay and generally
these these these kinds of mods don't
they don't fly around unless I like it's
their specific flight hours like a
certain time of the night so they're not
gonna like fly straight into the laser
beam and get destroyed you know my name
is Drake Anthony and I'm 25 years old
and I like to call myself a professional
mad scientist on YouTube I go by styro
pyro and that's the name that I came up
with
since I started posting videos I've
gotten over 100 million views actually
and I'm coming up on five hundred
thousand subscribers so it's it's
amazing the amount of viewership I've
gotten in those years and I would have
never expected that when I started my
channel now anytime I'm gonna break out
the high-power lasers I have to wear
goggles it's like there are no
exceptions there I mean you take one hit
to the eyes you're blind permanently I
mean even just looking at the spot on
the wall can damage your eye so I
probably these laser goggles and that
prevents me from uh so if I ever take a
direct hit
then it's gonna it's gonna save me from
that and this is what saved my eyesight
over the years all right so now I'm
gonna part this laser diode bang so I'm
gonna turn on my power supply and now
you know laser diodes are current
control devices so I'm gonna crank up
the current here and then let the power
supply take the voltage and there's the
laser beam going in fact I had one of
these banks on my laser bazooka and in
fact actually had four of them hooked up
and converts the other so this right
here is my 200 watt laser bazooka 200
watts the power I put on this thing is
insane now a 50 watt laser can do a lot
of damage but it really all comes down
to how tight that beam is ever at one
time I think I stuck an onion in the
beam in like a just you know tore I
was really impressed with with how much
it cooked that onion you know
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now on the syphilis laser design you
have some material that you dump energy
into and this is actually what's gonna
produce light so inside there's a big
crystal of ruby surrounded by a lamp and
a a shiny reflector then I have these
two mirrors here which allow the light
to bounce back and forth and get that
optical amplification but one of these
mirrors is gonna be semi-transparent so
some of that light can escape and you
can get your laser beam these are very
very special mirrors you can't just
stick any old regular mirrors there and
expect it to work
in fact this laser would annihilate that
in one shot now people ask me why I do
this kind of stuff and honestly I'm
hardwired for this I mean I was
interested in science ever since I was a
tiny kid and I was always wanting to do
my own little experiments and a lot of
times it's just sheer curiosity that
drives a lot of this stuff but just like
you know what if what happens if I do
this back here is right I just this is
where the true junk piles up you know I
got well old microwaves over there old
TVs I mean my friends give me their old
computers their old microwaves because I
can always use the parts in it so I just
stack them up over there in that corner
I use a bunch of scrap stuff in my bills
I love using junk in because not only is
it cheap but it can it can give new
purpose to to old stuff that people are
just throwing away or it's just gonna
rot in a landfill the harder gun are
these have 450 watt blue laser diode
banks they ripped out of some broken DLP
projectors they scored off of ebay this
is my safety switch which is really just
a screwdriver champ into a circuit
breaker then of course I also decided to
add a lepidopteran amplifier because it
can't have a good laser gun without one
of these I grew up in good field
Illinois which is this tiny town in the
middle of nowhere and population of 700
actually but growing up in such a rural
area was really good for you know
especially learning about chemistry as a
kid because know if the occasional
explosion wouldn't you know send a whole
fleet of cop cars coming out
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so when I was 12 years old I was
learning about lasers in school and I
mean it was it was very basic stuff but
it really caught my interest I wanted to
learn more the first time I got a
burning laser to work the first burning
laser that I built I mean here I had
this device that could like light things
on fire with just light it was it just
you know it was so crazy to me that I
had this like futuristic device that
you'd only see on movies just right here
in front of me and I put it together all
right you guys oh my god up we hit the
switch and as you can tell it's
incredibly bright it's super super
powerful and and since the since I made
a video on this I actually ripped it
apart and throw an even stronger laser
diode in it so it's closer to eight
watts I've made so many laser creations
over the years I've made so many and in
most the times they get torn down
afterwards but I mean it's gotta be in
the hundreds right thirteen kilojoule
input Ruby laser oh my 200 watt laser
brazuca my laser shotgun a cool laser
drone and I bills you know I've had
defense contractors and you know contact
me and wanted me to work for them and
they've also had like the random rich
guy who wants his own laser bazooka
which I obviously can't make for them
you know it gnarling is illegal I'm not
just gonna start selling you know laser
guns these things are not toys you know
they're crazy that the powers isn't a
skill that's hard to describe if you
look down here you can see that there's
a massive capacitor bank in here and
it's hard to convey the scale of how
much energy this thing stores like I
mean there's it while this thing is
running if you were to touch I mean if
you were to touch like this electrode up
here or or all this drive circuitry over
here if you touch any of it while it's
live you're dead
instantly like this thing it probably
has more than a hundred times more
energy than it takes to kill you it's
it's you know terrifying to operate and
and this is what I used to power up my
my strongest laser that I've ever built
my Ruby laser now if you're gonna
publish anything online you're gonna get
haters and of course I have my share of
haters out there and probably one of the
biggest complaints of them is that what
I do is fake they
that everything I made is like you know
CGI just some computer-generated stuff
and they just think I'm a complete hoax
and it's funny because you know I'm
making devices that are so cool that
they think it's fake you know I wish I
could bring them into my little lab here
and show them just what a laser can
actually do I think it'd be completely
blown away a lot of people think I
shouldn't own devices as powerful and in
this sense they're right I mean these
powers are just on scales that are hard
to imagine you know but your typical
hobbyist is not gonna be able to make
something like this so it's it's fun
making you know pushing these limits
even further I want my viewers to know
that science is number one in my channel
I never dove into any of these projects
without any you know without extensive
reading without you know incredible
safety precautions i I never dove into
this stuff blind and and that's why I
still have my eyesight's and that's why
I've been blowing my hands off is
because I've respected everything along
the way so this laser gun right here I
it's not actually a real gun it's just
an airsoft gun then I gutted for the
parts and then stuck a really powerful
laser inside of it so I just wired a
switch to the trigger here so when you
push that the laser beam comes on then I
added a safety switch here just for good
measure then the batteries here actually
go on the outside and man these
lithium-ion batteries are great like I'm
very thankful for them because really
beats those stupid like nickel metal
hydride or you know and I can't
batteries that we used to have
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so as you can tell it's very very bright
incredibly bright when I first started
working with lasers there weren't green
laser diodes available yet so it's cool
to see that progression laser technology
here we go
lasers are a mix of like some of the
greatest things that humans have come up
with I mean you got you know engineering
in us you have quantum physics you have
chemistry and and just making the
substrates that actually make your laser
you know you've got optics involved it's
just like this mix of all the best
things that humans have ever come up
with and that's why the science behind
them is so amazing oh this is my silver
play button for getting a hundred
thousand subscribers on YouTube it's
funny the things that get taken down by
a smaller content creators like me
compared to some of the big guys you
know like I had a video removed about my
laser bazooka it got removed because
supposedly the title was misleading you
know and because I called this laser
bazooka a bazooka I guess that was I
clickbait or something and but it really
was there's a giant laser gun that shot
huge beams this baby right here this is
200 watts which means it's 400 times
over the most dangerous rating imposed
by the FDA
this bazooka was a really fun project
you know I mean you can see all the
scrap metal that I used on it you might
want to see that sticker it's kind of
funny not only that will this kill you
it'll hurt the whole time you were dying
there's this weird double standard where
you know you're so these big YouTube
YouTube producers who make these like
big incredibly offensive things or just
stupid and dangerous acts but you know I
can't call my laser gun a bazooka or you
know I can't show a chemical reaction
that spontaneously licen fire even
though I talked about you know several
minutes into the chemistry involved
these strikes are there definitely
limiting and they limit what I can put
what I can show
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so I'm gonna use a friedel-crafts
isolation of a falcon hydride with
resorcinol which should give me a high
yield of fluorescein in the end so let's
start the synthesis Europe I think
YouTube associates the chemistry with
like you know bomb-making or making
drugs and it's very frustrating knowing
that my channel could just get banned
for some reason that they don't even
tell me why it just overnight it could
happen I'm not even sure if YouTube is
realizing this but but when they put
these restrictions in place that they're
limiting science education and like I
know when I was growing up as a kid the
internet was my main resource for
learning new stuff and and I wasn't
interested in things like you know
dumping vinegar you know and baking soda
and making a volcano I want to see
things you know light and fire and I
want to see awesome cool extreme science
so here have a little bit of flash
powder and this is actually what they
used to use in old cameras to make
really bright lights before they had
flash bulbs and it looks really really
cool when you hit it with a laser
alright three two one when you remove
those kinds of videos there's less kids
they're gonna get interested in science
and then then in the future there's less
scientists out of there and it takes
these little sparks this thing seeing
something that's amazing
to get so many interested in something
like this
the opportunities the laser to be used
for our analyst like there's talk about
building a laser powered spacecraft
using the actual momentum of the light
to repel it's little spacecraft to like
buzz on their stars lasers are going to
use in everything in the future I mean
they're already being used in medicine
but the new kinds of cancer treatments
that they're gonna be used for and as
our laser technology it's better could
even be used in like nuclear fusion
reactors there's this inertial
confinement fusion we take it a giant
laser beam that's from all sides
smash little pellets of nuclear fuel to
make it fusing I can't even imagine that
the kinds of things I'll be working on
in the future you know and the
collaborations I might be doing there
know what companies I might be working
with their universities but I just see
myself working his lasers and you know
until the day I die it's just it seems
to be something that is just you know
engraved into me and it's just you know
I love lead you tonight I hope to work
with them you know until the very end
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