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From: Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: how the laser happened
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 22:44:50 +0100
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On Fri, 21 Jun 2024 11:32:56 -0700, john larkin <jl@650pot.com> wrote:

>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.

My apologies, John. A rather obscure British cultural reference which
you wouldn't understand. Perhaps some British posters will recognize
it; we'll see.....

>
>The Getty Museum is in Malibu. Go there if you can. Hearst Castle,
>too, up the road a bit.
>