Oxford University Press
Hardcover $83.95 ISBN: 9780195142105 from publisher
Paperback $36.74 ISBN 9780199738717 from publisher
Also available in hardcover, or paper format from Bookshop.org, and in ebook formats.
Please contact me for signed copies.
The race to make the laser would bring one man the Nobel Prize and a second tens of millions of dollars in patent royalties, although neither would succeed in making the world's first laser.
It began with a conversation between two men at Columbia University's physics department in October 1957, soon after the Soviet Union had orbited Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. Charles Townes, at 42, was already an eminent professor, with an international reputation for developing the microwave maser. Gordon Gould, at 37, was a graduate student who was supposed to be writing his dissertation. Townes was looking for a way to extend the maser principle to producing visible light, and was interested how Gould had used light to excite atoms to emit more light for his dissertation project. Gould also had thought about making an optical version of the maser; it was a logical step that was in the air at Columbia. The two shared their ideas, then went their separate ways.
Townes settled down in his dogged, systematic way to deduce how to make what he called an "optical maser." He enlisted a friend and former colleague, Arthur Schawlow of Bell Labs, whose experience with optics complemented Townes's knowledge of microwaves. The two carefully analyzed the requirements for making a laser, not expecting competition from Gould.
Gould's dream was to be an inventor, not a scholar, and he realized what he called the laser could be the biggest thing in his life. He knew that Townes would be tough competition, but the vision of the laser filled him with a manic intensity. Familiar with optics, he intuitively realized the light oscillator he envisioned would generate a tightly focused beam. He sketched out his plan in a composition book, had it notarized and set out to patent it.
The idea was the easy part. The challenge was turning the theory into reality. It would take finding new materials, ways to excite them to emit light, and optics to make the light build up into a beam. After outlining the principles with Schawlow in Physical Review, Townes turned development to Schawlow and others at Bell Labs, and to a pair of his graduate students at Columbia. Gould went to work for a small defense contractor named TRG, and hustled a hefty military contract to build a laser -- but he could not gain the security clearance he needed to work on the laser contract.
The laser idea excited many others. One was a bright young physicist at Hughes Research Laboratories named Theodore Maiman, who had just finished engineering a remarkably compact maser which generated microwaves from ruby crystals. Maiman knew ruby could emit red light when illuminated with bright light. Schawlow had written off ruby as a laser material, but Maiman didn't understand why, so he made some careful measurements that convinced him Schawlow was wrong. To test his idea, he designed a little laser, with a fingertip-sized ruby cylinder placed inside a spring-shaped photographer's flashlamp. The first time Maiman powered up the flashlamp, the little ruby cylinder fired red laser pulses. The laser age began in May 16, 1960.
It should have been easy after that, but the editor of the country's top physics journal, Physical Review Letters, summarily rejected Maiman's report of his breakthrough. Maiman had to make the announcement at a press conference. Many first hesitated to believe, but others soon replicated Maiman's experiment. The dark horse had won the laser race, and later many honors. Townes would win a Nobel Prize in 1964, and after years of litigation, Gould earned millions in patent royalties.
Read all about it in Beam: The Race to Make the Laser. Signed copies available from the author for $24.00 including postage and handling.
Hardcover $83.95 ISBN: 9780195142105 from publisher
Paperback $36.74 ISBN 9780199738717 from publisher
Also available in hardcover, or paper format from Bookshop.org, and in ebook formats.
Please contact me for signed copies.
The race to make the laser would bring one man the Nobel Prize and a second tens of millions of dollars in patent royalties, although neither would succeed in making the world's first laser.
It began with a conversation between two men at Columbia University's physics department in October 1957, soon after the Soviet Union had orbited Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. Charles Townes, at 42, was already an eminent professor, with an international reputation for developing the microwave maser. Gordon Gould, at 37, was a graduate student who was supposed to be writing his dissertation. Townes was looking for a way to extend the maser principle to producing visible light, and was interested how Gould had used light to excite atoms to emit more light for his dissertation project. Gould also had thought about making an optical version of the maser; it was a logical step that was in the air at Columbia. The two shared their ideas, then went their separate ways.
Townes settled down in his dogged, systematic way to deduce how to make what he called an "optical maser." He enlisted a friend and former colleague, Arthur Schawlow of Bell Labs, whose experience with optics complemented Townes's knowledge of microwaves. The two carefully analyzed the requirements for making a laser, not expecting competition from Gould.
Gould's dream was to be an inventor, not a scholar, and he realized what he called the laser could be the biggest thing in his life. He knew that Townes would be tough competition, but the vision of the laser filled him with a manic intensity. Familiar with optics, he intuitively realized the light oscillator he envisioned would generate a tightly focused beam. He sketched out his plan in a composition book, had it notarized and set out to patent it.
The idea was the easy part. The challenge was turning the theory into reality. It would take finding new materials, ways to excite them to emit light, and optics to make the light build up into a beam. After outlining the principles with Schawlow in Physical Review, Townes turned development to Schawlow and others at Bell Labs, and to a pair of his graduate students at Columbia. Gould went to work for a small defense contractor named TRG, and hustled a hefty military contract to build a laser -- but he could not gain the security clearance he needed to work on the laser contract.
The laser idea excited many others. One was a bright young physicist at Hughes Research Laboratories named Theodore Maiman, who had just finished engineering a remarkably compact maser which generated microwaves from ruby crystals. Maiman knew ruby could emit red light when illuminated with bright light. Schawlow had written off ruby as a laser material, but Maiman didn't understand why, so he made some careful measurements that convinced him Schawlow was wrong. To test his idea, he designed a little laser, with a fingertip-sized ruby cylinder placed inside a spring-shaped photographer's flashlamp. The first time Maiman powered up the flashlamp, the little ruby cylinder fired red laser pulses. The laser age began in May 16, 1960.
It should have been easy after that, but the editor of the country's top physics journal, Physical Review Letters, summarily rejected Maiman's report of his breakthrough. Maiman had to make the announcement at a press conference. Many first hesitated to believe, but others soon replicated Maiman's experiment. The dark horse had won the laser race, and later many honors. Townes would win a Nobel Prize in 1964, and after years of litigation, Gould earned millions in patent royalties.
Read all about it in Beam: The Race to Make the Laser. Signed copies available from the author for $24.00 including postage and handling.