Theodore Maiman built the first working laser: on 16 May 1960, at Hughes Research Laboratories in California, his ruby crystal flashed with the first pulse of laser light — Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. The theory was Albert Einstein's, from a 1917 paper on stimulated emission; Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow's 1958 paper showed how to build one.
Maiman beat better-funded teams at Bell Labs and elsewhere because his design was simpler: a synthetic ruby rod, a flash lamp, two mirrors. The press called it 'a solution looking for a problem' — then the problems lined up: eye surgery, fiber optics, barcodes, printers, Blu-ray, missile guidance. The laser became the most versatile light ever made.
