This simple kitchen gadget would slice your bagels in half using a laser whose heat would toast the bagel - all in one easy go! An added 'feature' is all the wonderful 'secondary' uses you can think of for the powerful laser unit - once you get bored with just doing bagels of course.
-- jetckalz, Feb 19 2002

To toast something quickly (which I assume is the target here) is for it to be toasted only on the very surface. To get the toastiness deep within the bagel, you need a lower temperature applied for longer. Which of these would be better for a bagel I leave for the bagel-eaters of the world to judge.
-- angel, Feb 20 2002


Bagels have a quite dense texture so you could probably get away with a fast toasting
-- dare99, Feb 20 2002


I like it. It would only be useful for unfrozen bagels though.
-- Chris38183, May 27 2002


Maybe the thing to do would be to make a large array of reflected lasers, which would move *over* but never *touch* the surface of the bagel, at a high temperature but also very quickly, and do this several times.

I'm pretty sure lasers make too much noise anyway. Every movie I've ever seen with lasers, they make too much noise to be used in the household.
-- thelumberjack, May 28 2002


The laser in my CD player is remarkably quiet. Also, the laser pointers used by people demonstrating things in meetings often fail to wake me up.
-- angel, May 28 2002


That's a phaser he's thinking of, as in, 'Set phasers to toast'. Strange warbling noise required for operation sadly obligatory.
-- drew, May 28 2002


While I can't see using this as a bagel toaster, a laser bagel slicer, maybe modelled after those bagel guillotines (sp?), would be cleaner and easier than knives.
-- nick_n_uit, May 28 2002


But a laser powerful enough to "cut" a bagel would cause heavy charring on the cut surface. (Maybe some people like the flavor of charred bread, but I detest char in any measurable quantity.) Meanwhile the bulk of the bread will still be cold. Feh.
-- BigBrother, May 28 2002


The guys behind the new Hitchhikers' Guide movie appear to have been lurking here.
-- Tabbyclaw, May 20 2005



random, halfbakery