Laser question...

[digital-warrior]

I was up late tonight, because I couldn't sleep. I sat here smokin a cig, and just messing around with a pocket laser. For some weird reason, as my cig sat in the ashtray I shined the laser through the smoke, but when I did something weird happened. The smoke kinda pulled toward the laser light. Weird 'eh?? Not only that, when I brought the laser up toward the smoke where it got a little wider, the smoke started rippling... any ideas as to why this happens? To rest assure, I tried it numerous times to make sure it wasn't the air movement, as I moved the laser into the smoke. At first I thought it was because I was moving that moved the air around me, and in turn caused the smoke to behave that way, but I eliminated the possibility, and got the same effect. Any suggestions, besides the "your on drugs comments"???

 

[Rukee]

Was it one of those 'funny' cigarettes?!

 

[OrionCo30]

Here is a possible explanation. As the laser shines on the smoke particles, they absorb the light and get warmer. Then the air in contact with the warmed smoke particles also gets warmer, which triggers convection currents that causes the remaining smoke to converge toward the laser beam. Moving the laser beam to where the smoke starts getting wider puts the convection currents right where the stream of smoke is most unstable, creating the observed ripples

 

[The Purple Bunny]

Be honest. You're using lasers to target specific K-Marts to fire your doomsday missiles.

 

[Cat Fuzz]

Here is a possible explanation. As the laser shines on the smoke particles, they absorb the light and get warmer. Then the air in contact with the warmed smoke particles also gets warmer, which triggers convection currents that causes the remaining smoke to converge toward the laser beam. Moving the laser beam to where the smoke starts getting wider puts the convection currents right where the stream of smoke is most unstable, creating the observed ripples

Nope. Gremlins.

 

[UBerserker]

Nope. Gremlins.

Imps and Gnomes.

 

[digital-warrior]

Here is a possible explanation. As the laser shines on the smoke particles, they absorb the light and get warmer. Then the air in contact with the warmed smoke particles also gets warmer, which triggers convection currents that causes the remaining smoke to converge toward the laser beam. Moving the laser beam to where the smoke starts getting wider puts the convection currents right where the stream of smoke is most unstable, creating the observed ripples

Cool answer, I'm gonna hafta check this out..