The laser was invented today

[Ryan]

in 1960 the first working laser was demonstrated on 16th May 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories.

I've always been fascinated with them and what they can do - during the 80's my Dad produced a machine tool publication in South Africa and he did a lot of travelling, mainly to the UK, Germany and Japan to cover the latest technologies and laser cutting featured prominently.

He used to bring me back some souvenirs of things that had been cut by lasers - a really impressive scale outline of a racing bicycle, a model cannon and ball of shot (which could be unscrewed into three separate parts) and show me photos of the machines etc.

Anyway - just reminiscing quietly :)

uploaded/50107/1210903099.jpg


Mmmmm, pretty....

[Physician]

Yes, fascinating technology ........ and how lucky for you to have a dad who imparted all that sort of information onto a young mind - must have got you thinking and questioning everything you saw.

Laser cutting is fairly well known and a very successful use of the technology with certain materials (we even tried it with woodworking machines in the 70's but at that time it wasn't particularly successful) ....... but I was even more fascinated by the use of water to cut - watch your fingers! :thinking: