The Laser Turns 50

sonicimpulse writes with news that tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of physicist Theodore Maiman's creation of the first operational laser. "Theodore Maiman made the first laser operate on 16 May 1960 at the Hughes Research Laboratory in California, by shining a high-power flash lamp on a ruby rod with silver-coated surfaces. He promptly submitted a short report of the work to the journal Physical Review Letters, but the editors turned it down. Some have thought this was because the Physical Review had announced that it was receiving too many papers on masers — the longer-wavelength predecessors of the laser — and had announced that any further papers would be turned down. But Simon Pasternack, who was an editor of Physical Review Letters at the time, has said that he turned down this historic paper because Maiman had just published, in June 1960, an article on the excitation of ruby with light, with an examination of the relaxation times between quantum states, and that the new work seemed to be simply more of the same. Pasternack's reaction perhaps reflects the limited understanding at the time of the nature of lasers and their significance."

Comments

Happy Birthday Laser!

[Interoperable]

You're a good friend and I wish you all the best for the future.

Yet...a string of dissapointments

[sznupi]

Still no succesful integration with friggin' sharks... :(

50 years, and still no portable death ray.

[__aashqr1992]

..but I suppose we do have hi-def films, DVDs, CDs, cutting tools, holograms, spectroscopy, acne cures, hair removal, LIDAR, surgical tools and the barcode scanner. Which almost makes up for it.

Re:50 years, and still no portable death ray.

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Don't forget those nifty light sabers, phasers (where the light comes out so slowly you can watch it move to its target just as Captain Kirk dodges it), and my favorite -- Laser Eyes by Zozobra. It totally rocks!

Hey laser

[gooman]

It's amazing, you don't look a day ove....

Oww, my eye!

Re:Hey laser

[Sponge Bath]

I had a laser shot into my eye to reduce a blister on my retina (central serous retinopathy). It was all high tech, except they need to keep your head still while they press this apparatus against your eye. They had a frame to press your face against, but I could not hold myself still while they did that. The doctor supplemented the laser with a gorilla like nurse to pin my head to the frame with his hands.

Not the most dignified procedure, but it worked.

I remember...

[stonewolf]

I remember the first article I saw about the laser. I'm not sure if it is was in Popular Science or Scientific American, but I remember that it was described as a solution without a problem. For years after it was invented no one had any idea of what to do with the damn thing.

Now, it seems like they are everywhere there is one in every CD, DVD, and Blue Ray drive. We use them to align everything along that nice straight line. We are testing laser laser weapons. We use them to remove hair and correct eyes. They are critical to many manufacturing processes including precision cutting. Not to mention the whole field of holography and holographic optical elements.

But, It took many years for people to even start imagining what the thing was good for. And, even longer for the technology to get to where they could be used for practical applications. The history of the laser is a perfect study in how a really new idea develops into a useful technology. After 50 years we are only seeing the beginning of the application of the Laser.

Got to love it.

Stonewolf

Re:I remember...

[jtcampbell]

I think the key innovation (from a consumer point of view) was the laser diode. Whilst some early laser disc players used gas lasers, it was the laser diode that enabled the CD player and all the other consumer electronics applications you describe.