Theodore Maiman holding the world's first laser at the 25th anniversary of his invention.Handout/ The Globe and Mail
On Wednesday, Dan Gelbart, a co-founder of the imaging company Creo, did something he never imagined he'd do in his home: He fired the first laser.
"It's an eerie feeling," Mr. Gelbart said. "I'm perhaps the first one to touch it since someone very important touched it."
That someone is Theodore H. Maiman, who, 50 years ago became the first man to make a coherent beam of light by firing up the same tube-shaped device at the Hughes Research Laboratory in Malibu, Calif.
Dr. Maiman's achievement was brushed off by cliques of established academics who looked down on commercial scientists. Nevertheless, the Denver-raised physicist launched a new era of scientific thought and engineering will, and accelerated society's voyage into both outer space and cyberspace.
ENLIGHTENMENT AT 1,320 VOLTS
What Dr. Maiman saw on May 16, 1960, as he cranked the input to 1,320 volts, was not, at face value, spectacular - just a white flash and a red dot. But when he focused that red flash with lenses, he found he could burn through a razor blade. He had managed to create a high-energy beam of light.
On July 8 that year, the day after Hughes went public with Dr. Maiman's find, a number of newspapers printed large headlines announcing the arrival of a science-fiction "death ray." The publicity nonetheless opened the floodgates of funding into the study of Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (LASER).
May 16 has become a holy day for many camps of theoretical physicists and photonics engineers.
A DAY TO REFLECT
This weekend, Mr. Gelbart and a host of pre-eminent physicists and engineers are gathering at the Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver to celebrate, reminisce and ruminate on how much the world has changed since the laser became a reality.
Andrew Rawicz, a professor in the School of Engineering Science at Simon Fraser University, explained that the Terminal City is a fitting spot to celebrate the laser's golden anniversary, because this is the place "Ted" chose to move to in 1999 with his wife Kathleen.
Since Dr. Maiman's passing in May, 2007, Prof. Rawicz has been trying to establish a Maiman photonics research foundation and a Maiman archive at the university. The meeting of Dr. Maiman's fan club is part of that plan.
"The concept of the symposium is to show the avalanche of progress, which Ted caused by making his laser," Prof. Rawicz said from his office on Burnaby Mountain.
Dr. Maiman saw early on that the ability to concentrate signals at high frequencies meant one could transmit more stuff at a given time: data, in the case of fibre-optic networks, and energy, in the example of metal cutting.
The way in which laser light differs from regular light is akin to the difference between a marching army line and a chaotic crowd, Prof. Rawicz explained. "With this unruly crowd, you can do nothing. With this army, you can win wars."
Lasers, in effect, organize light and provide it with direction and power.
EARLY SUCCESS, FLEETING RECOGNITION
In his self-published 2000 memoir, The Laser Odyssey, which was, appropriately enough, printed in Vancouver on Creo-made laser printers, Dr. Maiman said that he learned early on to question conventional wisdom.
At 31/2, he was convinced that the light in the fridge didn't go off after the door closed. His mother agreed to shut him inside to prove him wrong. The switch was defective; the light stayed on.
In the nine months leading up to May of 1960, Dr. Maiman was engaged in a low-budget attempt ($50,000) to build a functioning laser, and decided to stick with the ruby as an excitation medium, even though leaders in similar fields dismissed it as a lasing medium. He also decided not to bother with the complicated cryogenics that other teams were pursuing.
When his breakthrough came, he made a small note in his lab book and kept going with the experiments. He recalled feeling just "numb and emotionally drained" at the time.
The next 47 years of his life drained a little more out of him. Although he continued working with lasers, particularly in medical applications, where his ultimate interests lay, it always upset Dr. Maiman that contemporaries kept trying to take credit for his accomplishment.
He was snubbed in 1964, when the Nobel Prize for the laser went to a team from Bell Labs, for the design on paper of a "laser" - but the design was not a realizable device. It was the theory work that earned Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow the credit.
"Maiman is one of the few cases where somebody clearly deserved the Nobel Prize and didn't get it," Mr. Gelbart said. "In every invention there is at least one person who conceives that it could be done, and usually another who demonstrates that it can be done."
In pure science, it's theory that matters. In technology, a working device is all that counts. The problem with the laser is that it is a marriage of theory and engineering skill, Mr. Gelbart said. No real consensus on the identity of the laser's inventor has been reached; though Mr. Gelbart concedes it could be that many parties deserve the honour.
THE LEGACY
If you type "laser inventor" into Google, Theodore Maiman is not the first result. But his friends and admirers believe his place in history is secure.
"When you create something of this magnitude, your legacy lives forever," said Prof. Rawicz. "There's a Latin phrase: non omnis moriare. You don't die entirely."
Kathleen, Dr. Maiman's widow, has taken on the task of telling his stories. She took on booked speaking engagements on his behalf after he died. And she still travels and speaks as a special guest at laser and photonics conventions.
"I am still so proud of him, because I know and appreciate how lasers have changed our world for the better," she said from her home in Vancouver. "I appreciate that he had the tenacity to not listen to the gurus of the day saying that his laser was not possible."
Lasers have been used to measure the distance to the moon. They've been used to remove birthmarks and tattoos. Lasers reattach retinas and reshape corneas. Lasers are at the heart of optical fibre Internet trunks, and they're used to etch the fine lines into the computer chips we use in devices every day. Yes, lasers guide military missiles; but the beams from small laser pointers also make excellent cat toys.
As far as the age of the laser goes, we're still only seeing the first glimpse.
Special to The Globe and Mail