Military LASERs are so powerful that they can knock missles out of the sky. LASERs can provide enough heat to weld metal parts together -- or actually vaporize others.

The LASERs that you will probably come in contact with in your classroom or as an amateur or hobbyist holographer will commonly fall under the category of low-power LASER. You do not need a lot of LASER power to create holograms. Most of the LASERs used for creating holograms fall in the power range of milliwatts, or thousandth of a watt. A good beginning power is 5mW, or 5-thousanths of one watt. These are very safe LASERs to work with, however, as with all LASERs, you still should never look directly into the beam.

Help keep LASERs and holography safe -- practice good experimental proceedures at all times.