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Gordon Gould biography

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Gordon Gould contributed to the invention of a Laser that uses visible light and the first use of the acronym LASER, in 1959.

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Synopsis

Native New Yorker and physicist Gordon Gould, born in 1920, garnered fame for his work on the visible light laser and the first use of the acronym, LASER, along with the subsequent battle for its patent. Although it took Gould nearly thirty years to win his patent battles, in the end the significant expansion of lasers meant his later patents became much more valuable than the original.

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But certainly the laser proved to be what I realized it was going to be. At that moment in my life I was too ignorant in business law to be able to do it right, and if I did it over again probably the same damn thing would happen.
– Gordon Gould

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Physicist, inventor, and manufacturer, born in New York City, New York, USA. He studied at Union College, New York (1941 BS), and did graduate work in physics at Yale, leaving to work on the atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project during World War 2 (1943–5). In the postwar years he worked for various private engineering firms while teaching at different institutions, including City College of New York (1947–54), Columbia University (1954–7), and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1967–74). While working at Columbia with Charles Townes and others, he contributed to the development of the laser. He would claim greater credit for the laser than others have been willing to grant him, but he was named inventor of the year (1978) by the Patent Office Society for his laser amplifier, and he holds patents on many of the laser devices used for industrial and medical applications. In 1974 he founded Optelecom Inc, which specializes in optical communications, retiring from the firm in 1985. Gould died on September 20, 2005 in Manhattan at age 85.

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