It's a common misconception, but lasers, as most people know it (like in laser pointers) are not actually focused.
They're collimated. They form a parallel beam that never converges into a single point.
That's as far from focus as you can get.
Of course it's possible to focus a laser, and I think optical disc drives may be one of the places where it's needed, but most people never see those lasers inside...
So next time you say laser-focused, keep in mind that most lasers youve seen were not
@wolf480pl the defining feature of lasers is that their light is in phase, i.e. each photon emitted from the laser is synchronised with the rest
so when someone is "laser focused" it implies that every aspect of their being is synchronised with their intention
@skells wouldn't that be "laser coherent" ? but yeah makes a lot of sense, even if those people probably don't realize it
@wolf480pl yeah for sure, the common sense interpretation of laser focused is on the right track though
@skells because you can colimate (or focus) them so well only because they're so coherent?
@wolf480pl that's a good question; collimation of laser light is easier because they tend to be monochromatic, "of one colour", which means their photons are roughly the same wavelength. this means that any lenses you use will ensure that most of the light responds in the same way and changes with the same angle.
I'm not sure if light needs to be coherent to be collimated, it seems likely that incoherent light would interfere with itself and cause the light to disperse but I'd need to think about it to be sure
@wolf480pl light can always be collimated on short length scales nut I suspect if it's not coherent that collimation will break down fairly quickly
