How the Idea Started
The idea of lasers is attributed to Columbia University physicist Charles Townes. In 1951 he was trying to find a way to study the behavior of molecules. He got the idea that he could use molecules themselves to see other molecules. He knew of a possible way to do this from one of Albert Einstein’s scientific papers. This process involved stimulating a material to emit photons that amplify, getting stronger.
First Success
In 1954, Townes and his researchers produced the first success. They called it the “Maser”, an acronym for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. Townes idea was a success. The maser was useful for spectroscopy, visualizing atomic structure using light.
After the maser, the first
laser was built in May 16, 1960 by Theodore Maiman. The first laser used a gas to generate the light.
Lasers play an important role in our everyday lives, too. The fact is, they show up in an amazing amount of products and technologies.
see video Today lasers, an acronym for “light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation”, have many uses. They are used in industry for cutting metal. Surgeons use them for surgery. Electronics use lasers. The CD and DVD players use lasers to read digital information. The Blu-Ray, high-definition player, uses a very fine blue laser to read tightly packed digital data on a disk. The narrow laser makes it possible to pack 27 gigabytes on a layer of data on a disk. Lasers are used for measurement. In the 1970’s, a laser aimed from Earth at a mirror on the moon was used to precisely measure the distance of the moon from Earth with an accuracy of two inches!
First Laser hockney
Today, we use lasers for communication. They are the light technology behind fiber optic cables that transmit information around the globe for Internet and other communications. This effort began to produce results in the 1970’s. Technology in the 1990’s greatly improved the use of fiber optics over long distances. All of this means you can have information move around the Earth at the speed of light. That is the technology that gives us super fast Internet and on-demand movies on our TV’s.
Lasers are important because they can save people lives and animals too.
Laser woordle