Path: ...!local-2.nntp.ord.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!local-1.nntp.ord.giganews.com!nntp.supernews.com!news.supernews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 18:32:57 +0000 From: john larkin Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: how the laser happened Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 11:32:56 -0700 Message-ID: <1ghb7jt3882078r19n6jjgtirv25q27805@4ax.com> References: User-Agent: ForteAgent/8.00.32.1272 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 42 X-Trace: sv3-H0Ik9bnYdfxucH+ZyrucNRbIZu9V5MZurgmSYFSyqoAkMSczwu1kRKNILTNyVOYuy1TW5RuNUXnVtAn!J677OJd3JmHx2sWaVidYm//Psm1SNvHaxZhJ1LZ+K5VdHFQCRIKONJ0HxvRVXcQwLknfmVE2CL5G!nwiDKA== X-Complaints-To: www.supernews.com/docs/abuse.html X-DMCA-Complaints-To: www.supernews.com/docs/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 Bytes: 2562 On Fri, 21 Jun 2024 17:56:36 +0100, Cursitor Doom wrote: >On Fri, 21 Jun 2024 06:05:21 -0700, john larkin wrote: > >>There was a thread somewhere above about photon wave/particle duality. >> >> >>This is worth reading: >> >>https://www.amazon.com/How-Laser-Happened-Adventures-Scientist/dp/0195153766 >> >>Einstein, in one of his fits of genius, predicted in around 1916 that >>under the right conditions, a photon could pass by an excited atom and >>the atom would kick in another photon, or add to the wave amplitude, >>depending on how you feel about these things. He called it stimulated >>emission. He also declared that the laws of thermodynamics made this >>effect impossible to use in practical situations. >> >>In 1951, Charles Townes invented a work-around trick and built the >>maser, a gaseous microwave oscillator. His superiors thought he was >>crazy to dispute Einstein and almost threw him out of grad school, but >>it worked. >> >>In 1960, Theodore Maiman at HRL made the first ruby laser, and Bell >>Labs soonafter made a HeNe. >> >>What's interesting is that any decent neon sign shop could have built >>a HeNe laser in 1920. >> >>HRL sounds like a very cool place, up in the hills above Malibu. > >Wasn't that where Jane Mansfield used to go out bathing? > Keep your mind on electronics, young man. The Getty Museum is in Malibu. Go there if you can. Hearst Castle, too, up the road a bit.