While it's not aprt of the official LaserFest package of stuff, Physics World is marking the 50th anniversary of the laser with a couple of really nice pieces on lasers in science and popular culture:
- Where next for the laser interviews six laser experts-- Claire Max of UCSC, Bill Phillips of NIST, Steven Block of Stanford, science writer Jeff Hecht, John Madey of Hawaii's FEL lab, and Eric Gustafson of Caltech and LIGO.-- about the current status of lasers in their areas of science, and the future prospects.
- From ray-gun to Blu-Ray is a very nice survey of lasers and laser-like devices in popular culture, from the various uses of lasers in science fiction films to the practical applications of lasers in optical data storage and bar-code scanners and the like.
Both pieces are well worth reading on a cold and dreary Saturday. Or any other kind of day, really.
More like this
It is my duty as a blogger to mention lasers in this time of international laser celebration. This May is the 50th anniversary of the first lasers. Everyone knows a laser that they love, right? We all use them.
Voting has closed on the Laser Smackdown poll, with 772 people recording their opinion on the most amazing of the many things that have been done with lasers in the fifty years since the invention of the first working laser (see the Laserfest web site for more
I haven't posted much about life in the lab lately, because even though I'm getting to spend a bit of time in the lab, I've been so fried from this past term that I haven't had much energy for blogging.
In 1960, the first working laser was demonstrated, and promptly dubbed "a solution looking for a problem." In the ensuing fifty years, lasers have found lots of problems to solve, but there has been no consensus about which of the many amazing applications of lasers is the most amazing.
This is new cool laser stuff:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/air-force-researchers-heal-woun…
Perhaps betraying my cluelessness about lasers, I can only think of the Austin Powers films.
"Fire the [quote-fingers] 'laser'!"
"FIRE THE LASER!!"