Word: schawlow
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...atom or molecule stimulated by an electro-magnetic wave (light, for example) would give off a basic unit of light called the photon, which would have the same wave length as the stimulating wave. A number of subsequent experiments proved Einstein correct. But not until 1958 did Physicists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes describe a device that they thought would be able to stimulate molecules of gas confined in a cylinder until they gave off photons in an intense and powerful stream. Their device was a variation of Townes's earlier Nobel Prizewinning invention, the maser-an instrument that...
Just two years later, Physicist Maiman used the Townes-Schawlow theory and built the world's first working laser, a small, hand-held instrument that shot out bursts of brilliant red light. Instead of a gas, Maiman's laser used a synthetic ruby crystal grown in a bath of molten aluminum oxide. In pure form, the aluminum oxide crystal is colorless and transparent. But a pinch of chromium added to the bath as an impurity gives the resulting crystals their characteristic ruby-red hue and supplies the chromium atoms (one for every 5,000 aluminum atoms) that cause...
...conventional radar altimeter would have indicated only the slope of the stadium; the laser picked out each row of seats, the one-foot space between each row, and even the slight depression of the running track at ground level. In no more than 20 years, Physicist Schawlow predicts, the laser will be a common tool "in the office, in the factory, and in the home, where it could be used for peeling potatoes." Or, he says, as he casually lights a book of matches with a hand-held laser, "it might even be used as a pilot light for kitchen...
Other shows follow Rockefeller Univer sity Microbiologist James Hirsch on his search for the "Secret of the White Cell," Louisiana Psychologist William Mason in a study of the "Childhood of the Chimpanzee," and Stanford Physi cist Arthur Schawlow on the mysteries of the "Laser - the Light of the Future...