Mani Lal Bhaumik is an Indian American physicist and a bestselling author. Early life Mani Lal Bhaumik was born in a Bengali Mahishya family on March 30, 1931 in a small village in Tamluk, Medinipore, West Bengal, India and attended the Kola Union High School. His father Gunodhar Bhaumik was a notable freedom fighter. As a teenager, Bhaumik spent some time with Mahatma Gandhi in his Mahisadal camp. He received a B.Sc. degree from Scottish Church College and an M.Sc. degree from the Rajabazar Science College campus of University of Calcutta. He won the attention of Satyendra Nath Bose (creator of the Bose–Einstein statistics) who encouraged his prodigious curiosity. Bhaumik became the first student to receive a doctorate from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur when he received his Ph.D. degree in quantum physics in 1958. His thesis was on Resonant Electronic Energy Transfers, a subject he would have cause to use in his work with lasers. Scientific career Receiving a Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1959, Bhaumik went to the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) for a position as Postdoctoral researcher. In 1961, he joined the Quantum Electronics Division at Xerox Electro-Optical Systems in Pasadena and began his career as a laser scientist. Concurrently, he taught Quantum physics and Astronomy at the California State University at Long Beach. In 1968, he was enlisted by the Northrop Corporate Research Laboratory, where he rose to become the director of the Laser Technology Laboratory and led a team that made pioneering contributions in research on excimer laser technology. One of the papers on this research was presented at the Denver, Colorado meeting of the Optical Society of America in March 1973. At this meeting, Bhaumik presented substantial evidence to demonstrate for the first time that an excimer laser could be efficient and powerful enough for practical utilization. The application of excimer lasers in Lasik eye surgery has resulted in vision correction in many cases. Excimer Laser is also used for difficult-to-treat skin diseases including psoriasis and vitiligo. The most widespread application of excimer laser has been in photolithography, a critical technology used in the manufacturing of microelectronic devices like cell phones. His contributions to the development of new and high power lasers merited his election by his peers to be a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Bhaumik's current interest is performing innovative