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NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2024 20:38:00 +0000
From: john larkin <jl@650pot.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: how the laser happened
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2024 13:38:00 -0700
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On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 18:08:52 -0000 (UTC), Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

>john larkin <jl@650pot.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:39:56 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
>> <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 05:03:34 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On a sunny day (Sat, 22 Jun 2024 17:23:40 -0000 (UTC)) it happened
>>>> Cursitor Doom <cd999666@notformail.com> wrote in
>>>> <v571as$3rs0j$2@dont-email.me>:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Sat, 22 Jun 2024 06:19:49 GMT, Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On a sunny day (Fri, 21 Jun 2024 11:32:56 -0700) it happened john
>>>>>> larkin <jl@650pot.com> wrote in
>>>>>> <1ghb7jt3882078r19n6jjgtirv25q27805@4ax.com>:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I've been to Malibu, even did some work there...
>>>>>> Did not go to any museum, but did go to the beach.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Did you see Jane? What about lobsters? Any lobsters around? 
>>>> 
>>>> Na, but some other beatiful women I met.
>>>> Last time we went looking for edible seaweed ...
>>> 
>>> Argh! Never mind. I believe Jane had terrible problems with lobsters when 
>>> she went out bathing in Malibu. But you don't know anything about that, 
>>> clearly. It obviously wasn't publicised in Holland.
>> 
>> This thread is about lasers, not lobsters. 
>> 
>> 
>
>Well, Schawlow famously said, “Anything will lase, if you hit it hard
>enough.”
>
>I expect that includes lobsters. 
>
>Cheers 
>
>Phil Hobbs 

But no, seriously, there must be some laser action, or at least some
sort of stimulated emission, some sort of super-fluorescence, in
nature somewhere.