Tags: laser, anniversary, life.
On Sunday, the laser will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. This invention, one of the most important 20th century became inevitable in the industry and our everyday consumption.
In California, the laser light projected its first in 1960. A California physician, Thomas Maiman, 32 years, this time trying to implement a physical principle enunciated by Einstein in 1917. The latter explained that the atoms were able to spontaneously emit a photon (a particle of light) of a particular wavelength determined after adequate stimulation.
The physicist was able to implement this "stimulated emission" and obtained using a ruby crystal, a beam of red light (that is to say corresponding to a specific wavelength as the Einstein predicted), regular and straight. The laser, English acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation", is born.
Experimental curiosity in the beginning, the invention does not take long to find its first application. It will be medical. The concentrated energy and high precision of machine used for the destruction of a retinal tumor the following year in 1961. Thirty years later, the technology will be used for the first surgery to correct myopia. And in 2008, is a brain tumor will be destroyed for the first time using a laser.
A laser in each DVD player:
In 1965, the laser is sufficiently powerful and well controlled to give rise to its first industrial application: the precision cutting of materials particularly strong. At the time it is in the diamond (one of the hardest materials) that they dig a cavity of 2 mm deep. A real tour de force. Today, the laser is widely used in the aerospace, automotive and computer processing to produce a very fine parts. This use is also the third of a market valued at around six billion euros.
Telecommunications, a highly-intensive fiber optic flow in which laser beams, and data storage monopolize their side a good half of that market. Each player CDs (developed by Phillips in 1978) or DVD (the first player marketed by Toshiba in 1996) requires a laser. A drive two. If we add to these technologies become widespread, laser printers (IBM 1975) and bar code readers in supermarkets imagined in 1974, the message is clear: the laser is everywhere.
In California, the laser light projected its first in 1960. A California physician, Thomas Maiman, 32 years, this time trying to implement a physical principle enunciated by Einstein in 1917. The latter explained that the atoms were able to spontaneously emit a photon (a particle of light) of a particular wavelength determined after adequate stimulation.
The physicist was able to implement this "stimulated emission" and obtained using a ruby crystal, a beam of red light (that is to say corresponding to a specific wavelength as the Einstein predicted), regular and straight. The laser, English acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation", is born.
Experimental curiosity in the beginning, the invention does not take long to find its first application. It will be medical. The concentrated energy and high precision of machine used for the destruction of a retinal tumor the following year in 1961. Thirty years later, the technology will be used for the first surgery to correct myopia. And in 2008, is a brain tumor will be destroyed for the first time using a laser.
A laser in each DVD player:
In 1965, the laser is sufficiently powerful and well controlled to give rise to its first industrial application: the precision cutting of materials particularly strong. At the time it is in the diamond (one of the hardest materials) that they dig a cavity of 2 mm deep. A real tour de force. Today, the laser is widely used in the aerospace, automotive and computer processing to produce a very fine parts. This use is also the third of a market valued at around six billion euros.
Telecommunications, a highly-intensive fiber optic flow in which laser beams, and data storage monopolize their side a good half of that market. Each player CDs (developed by Phillips in 1978) or DVD (the first player marketed by Toshiba in 1996) requires a laser. A drive two. If we add to these technologies become widespread, laser printers (IBM 1975) and bar code readers in supermarkets imagined in 1974, the message is clear: the laser is everywhere.
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