The Laser Inventor
The Laser Inventor

Author: Theodore H. Maiman

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-12-21

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 3319619403

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In these engaging memoirs of a maverick, Theodore H. Maiman describes the life events leading to his invention of the laser in 1960. Maiman succeeded using his expertise in physics and engineering along with an ingenious and elegant design not anticipated by others. His pink ruby laser produced mankind’s first-ever coherent light and has provided transformational technology for commerce, industry, telecom, the Internet, medicine, and all the sciences. Maiman also chronicles the resistance from his employer and the ongoing intrigue by competing researchers in industry and academia seeking to diminish his contribution in inventing the first laser. This work will appeal to a wide readership, from physicists and engineers through science enthusiasts to general readers. The volume includes extensive photos and documentary materials related to Maiman’s life and accomplishments never before published. "No one beat Maiman to the laser. How important is the laser? How important are all lasers? That is how important we have to regard Maiman’s contribution.He and the laser changed all of our lives, everyone’s!"Dr. Nick Holonyak, Jr., Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics, University of Illinois at Champaigne-Urbana, and inventor of the light-emitting diode (LED) and co-inventor of the transistor laser "More than five decades later, we can safely conclude that Theodore Maiman's groundbreaking discovery changed the world. Our modern life just as scientific research would be quite different without the laser."Dr. Ferenc Krausz, Director, Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Garching, Germany, and Professor of Physics, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, and pioneer in attosecond lasers and attophysics "Maiman had the stroke of genius needed to take a different approach [from his competitors]. The sheer elegance and simplicity of his design belies the intellectual achievement it represents. If his invention seems obvious to some today, it was far from obvious in 1960."Jeff Hecht, authoritative science writer on the historical development of the laser, author of books on lasers and fiber optics

Laser
Laser

Author: Nick Taylor

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2002-01-09

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0743213211

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The fascinating true story of Gordon Gould's successful thirty-year struggle to assert himself as the rightful inventor of the laser -- and a myth-shattering, behind-the-scenes account of the American patent process.The insight struck Gould with the force of revelation. He sat bolt upright in bed, marveling at its perfection. Soon he was at his desk, writing at the top of a page in his laboratory notebook, "Some rough calculations on the feasibility of a "Laser": Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation."So began the invention of the laser in 1957, a machine that changed industry, medicine and science, and much of modern life. Gordon Gould was a graduate student with a checkered past and a yen to invent, but he had a blind spot when it came to patent rights. And when a respected professor with an office next to Gould's electrified the scientific world with his own claims on the laser, Gould was in for the fight of a lifetime.For the next thirty years, Gould battled the U.S. Patent Office and manufacturers to enforce his rights as the laser's inventor. Rebuffed, he was even denied security clearance to work on his own in

Do You See What I See?
Do You See What I See?

Author: Russell Targ

Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing

Published: 2010-03-01

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1612830072

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Now in paperback, the droll memoir by a world-class physicist that includes recollections of his involvement with pioneering laser research, encounters with many of the most recognizable literary, cultural, and entertainment figures of the 20th century, and his role in teaching ESP techniques to the CIA--a real-life X-Files saga. Russll Targ is a Zelig-like character. His story is an idiosyncratic journey through the highways and byways of American intellectual, scientific, and cultural life in 20th century. His father (the long-time editor-in-chief at Putnam) acquired The Godfather on the basis of an outline scribbled on the back of a napkin. His mother was the first press agent of the fan dancer Sally Rand. His step-mother is the legendary literary agent Rosalind Targ. He was married for thirty years to the sister of the infamous chess master Bobby Fischer. He briefly dated Henny Youngman’s cousin. He attended college with Alan Alda’s wife, Arlene. He was part of Ayn Rand’s study group in the 1950s--along with economist Alan Greenspan. He was a pioneer in laser research. He spent many years developing air-borne laser wind sensors for Lockheed and NASA. He co-founded the Stanford Research Institute remote viewing program--which was funded by the CIA--and was instrumental in tracking Soviet and Chinese weapon installations during the Cold War. And, he is a legally blind motorcyclist—who happens to be a Buddhist. This is a fascinating memoir by a first-class intellect; the story of a physicist who has pushed the boundaries of siceince to explory the realms of parapsychology, spirituality, and the unexplained.

Beam : The Race to Make the Laser
Beam : The Race to Make the Laser

Author: Jeff Hecht

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2005-02-11

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0199755728

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In 1954, Charles Townes invented the laser's microwave cousin, the maser. The next logical step was to extend the same physical principles to the shorter wavelengths of light, but the idea did not catch fire until October 1957, when Townes asked Gordon Gould about Gould's research on using light to excite thallium atoms. Each took the idea and ran with it. The independent-minded Gould sought the fortune of an independent inventor; the professorial Townes sought the fame of scientific recognition. Townes enlisted the help of his brother-in-law, Arthur Schawlow, and got Bell Labs into the race. Gould turned his ideas into a patent application and a million-dollar defense contract. They soon had company. Ali Javan, one of Townes's former students, began pulling 90-hour weeks at Bell Labs with colleague Bill Bennett. And far away in California a bright young physicist named Ted Maiman became a very dark horse in the race. While Schawlow proclaimed that ruby could never make a laser, Maiman slowly convinced himself it would. As others struggled with recalcitrant equipment and military secrecy, Maiman built a tiny and elegant device that fit in the palm of his hand. His ruby laser worked the first time he tried it, on May 16, 1960, but afterwards he had to battle for acceptance as the man who made the first laser. Beam is a fascinating tale of a remarkable and powerful invention that has become a symbol of modern technology.

Code Name God
Code Name God

Author: Mani Bhaumik

Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited

Published: 2018-01-15

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 9387326616

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Four hundred years after science overthrew faith, science is itself proving to be a false god, leaving in its wake a disillusioned and despondent mankind. In Code Name God, Mani Bhaumik, renowned physicist and one of the pioneers of the LASIK eye surgery technology, draws on the field of quantum physics and cosmology to answer the fundamental questions about faith. He demonstrates how both spirituality and science are essential for human beings and how one can strike a perfect balance between the two. The author, who as a youngster lived in Mahatma Gandhi's camp, details his incredible rags-to-riches journey and his equally remarkable search for meaning in life, which make for a motivational saga. Insightful and enriching, Code Name God provides a simple and easy-to-understand scientific approach to faith and the realization of god.

Understanding Lasers
Understanding Lasers

Author: Jeff Hecht

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2011-09-20

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 1118210042

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Updated to reflect advancements since the publication of the previous edition, Understanding Lasers: An Entry-Level Guide, 3rd Edition is an introduction to lasers and associated equipment. You need only a minimal background in algebra to understand the nontechnical language in this book, which is a practical, easy-to-follow guide for beginners. By studying the conceptual drawings, tables, and multiple-choice quizzes with answers provided at the back of the book you can understand applications of semiconductor lasers, solid-state lasers, and gas lasers for information processing, medicine, communications, industry, and military systems.

Star Trek Odyssey
Star Trek Odyssey

Author: William Shatner

Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780671025472

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Three complete, exciting adventures in one great volume: "The Ashes of Eden, The Return", and "Avenger".

Galileo Unbound
Galileo Unbound

Author: David D. Nolte

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-07-12

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0192528505

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Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.