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Books > Professional & Technical > Electronics & communications engineering > Electronics engineering > Applied optics > Laser technology
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Beam - The Race to Make the Laser (Paperback, New)
Loot Price: R1,449
Discovery Miles 14 490
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Beam - The Race to Make the Laser (Paperback, New)
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Beam is the story of the race to make the laser, the three intense
years from the birth of the laser idea to its breakthrough
demonstration in a California laboratory. The quest was a struggle
against physics, established wisdom, and the establishment itself.
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 borth ation 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.
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