Dropping out of light speed, a fleet of rebel spaceships is greeted by a frenzy of laser blasts, illuminating the sector with brilliant bursts of light.
Science fiction has shown us scenes like this for decades, but the lasers in our daily lives seem far less dazzling and destructive.
Laser eye surgery can cut tissue, and laser cutters can shape wood or plastic, but neither seems strong enough to pierce a spaceship.
And laser pointers are more likely to annoy a cat than an evil empire.
So, could sci-fi laser weaponry ever exist?
And how do lasers even work in the first place?
Lasers are devices that produce laser beams, which are ultimately just a form of light, but these beams have special properties.
For example, the ordinary light from this incandescent bulb is composed of a rainbow of colors, each of a different wavelength.
And the particles that make up the light, called photons, randomly emanate outward in all directions.
Laser beams, on the other hand, are much more organized.
