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by marginalia_nu 1339 days ago
Sure. The energetic end of the visible spectrum is weakly ionizing, more so in the UV spectrum. But ionization is not why the bug starts smoking.

You can start a fire with a sufficiently high powered infrared laser too.

1 comments

I think it's worth noting that a magnifying glass actually blocks/filters out UVB, and substantially reduces UVA. Feynman famously watched Trinity with only a truck windshield to protect him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)