Powerful Light in Life

“There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen, Selected Poems, 1956-1968 Born at Big Bang, Light is one of the key Universe elements that make Life possible. It regulates our circadian rhythms and acts on all physiological and psychical functions, supplies with food, stimulates activity. Over 80% of information is obtained by us from vision. From first steps, humankind endeavored to tame light, to force it working for human being. Passing from taming fire to candle and light bulb, from idea of corpuscular and wave nature of light to its duality, in the 20th century our civilization came to the invention of Lasers. Nowadays, almost all fields of human activity use lasers and/or are controlled by lasers. The history of a long way to laser invention and its introduction to technologies and everyday life will be touched in this talk with main emphasis on the powerful lasers already invented or being under development. We will focus on how powerful lasers can serve in energy production, material science, medicine, and Earth defense from artificial and natural space debris. The advantages of novel HiLASE lasers with record parameters will be outlined.