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Laser day
On May 16th 1960, Theodore Maiman changed the world when he demonstrated the world’s first working laser. He made his breakthrough at Hughes Aircraft Corporation, by generating pulses of coherent light from a fingertip-sized lump of ruby illuminated by a flash lamp. The exact attribution of the invention has historically been a little problematic. Maiman beat a number of other physicists to the post, including Charles Townes who had earlier developed the maser, a microwave forerunner of the laser, while Townes’ student Gordon Gould coined the actual word “laser”.
How ever the credit should be apportioned, the results have been extraordinary, with lasers playing a huge role in our lives already and further breakthroughs nearly every day. You can be sure that the achievements of laser developers in the next 48 years will be every bit as remarkable as Maiman’s ground-breaking experiment. And that optics.org will bring them to you.
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