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 <jl@650pot.com>
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: <s2ta7jpomhs58bnntb4nut6pqc4ljskpac@4ax.com> <d5cb7j96v01rnj2ub44r39c9ghet2t6smv@4ax.com>
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 <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 21 Jun 2024 06:05:21 -0700, john larkin <jl@650pot.com> 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.