Talk:Gordon Gould

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Contents 1 Pumping 2 Scope of patents 3 WikiProject class rating 4 "Inventor" of LASER

[edit] Pumping

Grocery store lasers usually are helium-neon lasers. The active medium is electrically excited, not optically excited. The same is true of the semiconductor laser that is used in CD players. Thus, neither of the examples provided in the Wikipedia article for Gordon Gould are optically-pumped, and the article should be changed.

An example of an optically-pumped laser would be a dye laser, or an Nd:YAG laser. Both of these use either flashlamps or the optical output of some other laser to generate their laser radiation.

I haven't performed a census, but I suspect that the most common type of laser in use today is not optically pumped. Helium-neon and semiconductor lasers are quite common, and both are electrically-pumped.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pooua (talk • contribs) .

Gould's patents cover collision pumping as well as optical pumping. He:Ne lasers are pumped by collisions between atoms in the electrical discharge. I believe he specifically proposed helium-neon mixtures as a suitable medium, but I can't find the reference right now in the biography of Gould I have here.--Srleffler 03:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, in fact Gould's 1959 patent application included the helium-neon laser explicitly. It was one of many types discussed, however. (Taylor, page 181.)--Srleffler 06:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You're right though that the most common type of laser in use today is electrically-pumped. Semiconductor lasers easily outweigh all other types. I believe this is true not only in number of devices, but also in volume of sales ($$).--Srleffler 07:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of patents

One issue that the article doesn't deal with well, is the distinction between what Gould is provably the inventor of and what he actually received patents for. Contrary to the impression given in the article, Gould did not actually succeed in getting a patent for lasers in general, although there is strong evidence that he should have—he is provably the inventor of the laser in the sense used by the patent office, but did not in fact succeed in obtaining that patent. Instead, after his long fight with the patent office, he was able to obtain patents on many of the key technologies that go into making a laser and many of the applications of lasers, but not on the laser itself. --Srleffler 01:36, September 27, 2006

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Inventor" of LASER

From the MASER page: "Townes later worked with Arthur L. Schawlow to describe the principle of the optical maser, or laser, which Theodore H. Maiman first demonstrated in 1960. For their research in this field Townes, Basov and Prokhorov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964."

Question (needs some research): Is Gould the inventor of the name "LASER" or the concept "LASER" ? -> for following the MASER article Maiman is the first to demonstrate a working LASER.

Perhaps all these articles (MASER, Maiman) should say basically the same, as well as the history section of LASER:

"In 1950, Alfred Kastler (Nobel Prize for Physics 1966) proposed the method of optical pumping, which was experimentally confirmed by Brossel, Kastler and Winter two years later.[8]" & "In 1957, Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow, then at Bell Labs, began a serious study of the infrared laser. As ideas were developed, infrared frequencies were abandoned with focus on visible light instead. The concept was originally known as an "optical maser". Bell Labs filed a patent application for their proposed optical maser a year later. Schawlow and Townes sent a manuscript of their theoretical calculations to Physical Review, which published their paper that year (Volume 112, Issue 6).

The first page of Gordon Gould's laser notebook in which he coined the acronym LASER and described the essential elements for constructing one.

At the same time Gordon Gould, a graduate student at Columbia University, was working on a doctoral thesis on the energy levels of excited thallium. Gould and Townes met and had conversations on the general subject of radiation emission. Afterwards Gould made notes about his ideas for a "laser" in November 1957, including suggesting using an open resonator, which became an important ingredient of future lasers.

In 1958, Prokhorov independently proposed using an open resonator, the first published appearance of this idea. Schawlow and Townes also settled on an open resonator design, apparently unaware of both the published work of Prokhorov and the unpublished work of Gould.

The term "laser" was first introduced to the public in Gould's 1959 conference paper "The LASER, Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation".[9] [10] Gould intended "-aser" to be a suffix, to be used with an appropriate prefix for the spectra of light emitted by the device (x-ray laser = xaser, ultraviolet laser = uvaser, etc.). None of the other terms became popular, although "raser" was used for a short time to describe radio-frequency emitting devices."

Cheers, Slarti —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.175.73.201 (talk) 14:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The history of the "invention" of the laser is a bit complicated, and who is the "inventor" depends on what exactly your definition of "invent" is. Gould coined the name "LASER", Schawlow and Townes were the first to publish a scientific paper on the theory of the laser, and Maiman was the first to actually build one that worked. Where the story gets more complicated is that while he was neither the first to publish the theory nor the first to build a working laser, Gould appears to have been the first person to come up with the correct design for how to make a workable laser. Because he wanted to patent his invention, he kept good notes and had them notarized, which was sufficient to maintain patentability under the laws at that time. His early notes included many key technologies needed to make a laser, and also many applications of a laser. He appears to have been the first to understand what a laser beam would be like, and what kinds of things one could do with it, even before anyone had built one. Gould fought hard to get the patent on the laser but failed. Whether he failed on merit or because of politics is hard to decide objectively. Some would argue on either side. He did, however, gain patents on many of the key technologies and applications mentioned above, and became quite wealthy as a result. So, to answer your question above, Gould is the inventor of both the name "LASER" and of the principles needed to actually build one.--Srleffler (talk) 04:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)