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U.S. government researchers have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling, as reported by Nick Fielding at The Guardian.
Sandia National Laboratories — the government's principal nuclear research and development agency — and defense contractor Northrop Grumman developed the blueprints for the new unmanned air vehicles.
The highly sensitive research into "ultra-persistence technologies" set out to solve three problems associated with drones: insufficient hang time over a potential target, lack of power for running surveillance and weapons systems, and lack of capacity for communications.
The project succeeded in providing far more surveillance time and intelligence information per mission while increasing available electrical power at least two-fold. The nuclear-powered drones would also eliminate the need for forward bases and fuel supplies in remote and possibly hostile areas.
From The Guardian:
A halt has been called to the work for now, due to worries that public opinion will not accept the idea of such a potentially hazardous technology, with the inherent dangers of either a crash - in effect turning the drone into a so-called dirty bomb - or of its nuclear propulsion system falling into the hands of terrorists or unfriendly powers.
The Project Accomplishment Summary stated that the results will not be put to use because of "political realities" despite the fact that "the technical goals for the project were accomplished."
Sandia released the following statement to confirm that the project had been completed:
"Sandia is often asked to look at a wide range of solutions to the toughest technical challenges. The research on this topic was highly theoretical and very conceptual. The work only resulted in a preliminary feasibility study and no hardware was ever built or tested. The project has ended."


text: Within ISPConfig panel, I have no idea what the sorting of the various lists is, if there is one. I would really appreciate if one could sort according to the domains or such, depending on the context. Plus it would be helpful to filter also with substrings. Maybe one does not recall exactly how the domainname was.. now you may filter "domain.com" but not "dom" AFAIK. Or they give you a persons name but not the domain.. a more flexible search would be great. I Also think that 15 items per page is very few. I changed my php files to 100. A general setting would be helpful.

subset: commoncrawl


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A sweltering July was the hottest month on record for the United States. Add major drought to the mix and the misery in much of farm country is overwhelming.
More than half of Arkansas is now in "exceptional drought" – the worst designation of the U.S. Drought Monitor. While much of the state's row-crop land has been spared the worst of the drought, the same isn't true for many ranchers.
How is the heat and drought being dealt with by Arkansas cattlemen? How are they preparing for winter and 2013? How available is hay and how much is costing producers?
Tom Troxel, associate head-Animal Science for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, says these "are extremely difficult times. One thing that's very important and is often overlooked: for a cattle producer, the cows aren't just an animal. They really care for them. To go through this time, having to cull cows in this drought is extremely stressful for the producers.
"Too often we forget how stressful such situations are for the producers. I work with cattlemen all the time and it is obvious how much they care for their herds. I have a lot of empathy for them.
"I just wish it would rain and rain."
Among Troxel's other comments:
On current conditions in Arkansas cattle country…
"Reports are that our cattle number sales, as far as cows, are up about 5 percent. So, we're seeing a lot of cattle herds being cut back severely. Some herds are being sold entirely.
"There's just no pasture to speak of.
"We have had some pop-up showers in the last few days. And southern Arkansas looks better than the northern half. But even with the pop-up showers, the pastures have greened up but we've not grown any quantity of grass. So, pastures are extremely short to non-existent.
"There's almost no hay to be found in the state."
On hay quality…
"People are baling up anything they can find. That means the nutrient value of much of the hay is extremely poor.
"Another problem with the pop-up showers is with Johnsongrass. We're seeing a number of cases – maybe one a week -- of prussic acid poisoning. Once Johnsongrass is baled and dried out, it's okay to feed.
"However, the real concern is with grazing animals.
"Hay quality is a big worry. When you buy hay now it's hard to know exactly what you're getting."
On the condition of the state's cattle…
"We're seeing cows beginning to get thin. The heat has a lot to do with that. Cows don't want to eat as much in hot weather.
"Producers need to be aware of the body condition of their cows. As body condition decreases the selling price of the cattle will also decrease. So, when they decide to sell those cows, the cattlemen lose on both ends: they'll sell a lighter weight cow and the selling price per pound will be less. So they get hit twice with the selling value.
"Cattlemen need to monitor their cows' body conditions and try to at least maintain those. When those conditions begin to slip, they should seriously consider whether it's time to sell."
On the input costs of keeping cattle…
"I know of a cattle producer who bought prairie hay from Oklahoma. When you consider how much he paid for the hay along with how much cows eat, how much they waste hay, he's looking at a feeding cost of $70 per cow, per month. For 10 cows that's $700.
"That adds up to a major expense very fast.
"Remember, the 2012 calf crop is gone. People have weaned their calves, sold their calves.
"You're feeding pregnant cows for the 2013 calf crop. What you're really banking on is how much the calf will be worth next year. The drought is affecting so much of this country, how much will that calf be worth?
"I don't have a crystal ball but lean towards believing calves will be worth a lot more next year than they were this year. When you consider how much you can afford to spend for feed today, you have to balance that with what calves will be worth in 2013. That's the guessing game many cattlemen have to deal with, right now."
On preparations for winter…
"A lot of producers are showing interest in planting winter annuals. Last year, parts of Arkansas were extremely dry as well.
"We got a lot of rain in November of last year. Those that planted winter annuals in September and October got a lot of grazing out of those winter annuals. That really saved them.
"Producers remember that and we're seeing a big uptick in plans to plant winter annuals for grazing.
"Cattlemen are optimists. Hopefully, we'll get ample rains this fall and, with the help of winter annuals, we'll make a comeback this winter.
"However, the cows have to eat between now and then. Producers are still going to be scrambling for hay or some other feed byproducts."
On silage and baling row-crop residues…
"There's a lot of interest in crop residues. A lot of that was fed last year, as well.
"You have to be careful with crop residues, though, because there are chemicals approved for crop production but aren't approved for grazing.
"Producers wanting to buy baled crop residue need to be aware of that. They need to ask what herbicides or chemicals were used on the crops. Whatever was used must be approved for grazing animals."
See full drought coverage here.


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Flower Mound, TX 75022 (972) 691-9595 Hours M-F 6:30am-6:30pm
See Inside Our School facebook-icon
Our teachers and caregivers are trained, ready and excited to help spark lightbulb moments for your child. We invite you to visit and see our Balanced Learning approach in action
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A day that celebrates moms is a perfect reason to cuddle up with your child and a good story.
Often, my 2-year-old spends more awake time with her teachers than with me (#workingmomproblems).
You've heard the adage mother knows best. So why do parents choose Primrose?
Children who participate in physical education programs are likely to become active, healthy adults.
Does your child tell crazy fibs? Many parents of preschool-age children are concerned when their child starts to tell lies, but this is normal!


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I'm just afraid you're going to freak the poor guy out. I'm in the top 10% (maybe the top 5%), and so are members of my study group. We did not do 100 exams. We *did* do every exam we could get our hands on, but it couldn't have been any more than 20 over the course of both semesters. Obviously, what LilOneL did worked, but don't think that you *need* to do it. But while we're on the subject of practice exams, I want to again stress how important I think it is that you not only do the exams, but that you *study* any sample answers or going over the exam with your professors. Why? This gives you insight into what answer your profs want. And you'll be amazed how many of your classmates won't do that extra step (which I consider to be the most important step).
How much does LEEWS cost? I couldn't actually find a price on their site. I am talking about the program or whatever you guys are talking about.


text:
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Cleanup at the Oak Ridge Reservation took a major leap forward in 2010, with the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management completing numerous projects that reduced risks, decreased the site's footprint and paved the way for new development for DOE missions.
Major accomplishments were completed across the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12 National Security Complex and the East Tennessee Technology Park using baseline and Recovery Act funds.
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Washington – U.S. officials insisted Tuesday that extraordinary security measures for nearly two dozen diplomatic posts were to thwart an "immediate, specific threat," a claim questioned by counterterrorism experts, who note that the alert covers an incongruous set of nations from the Middle East to an island off the southern coast of Africa.
Analysts don't dispute the Obama administration's narrative that it's gleaned intelligence on a plot involving al Qaida's most active affiliate, the Yemen-based Arabian Peninsula branch. That would explain why most U.S. posts in the Persian Gulf are on lockdown, including the U.S. embassy in Yemen, which on Tuesday airlifted most of its personnel to Germany in an "ordered departure," the government's euphemism for an evacuation.
But how, then, does it make sense for the State Department to close embassies as far afield as Mauritius or Madagascar, where there's been no visible jihadist activity? And why is it that countries that weathered numerous terrorist attacks – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, for example – were excluded or allowed to reopen quickly?
At Tuesday's State Department briefing, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said there were plans to keep 19 posts closed to the public through Saturday. But she had no answers when a reporter asked: "How did the countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean get into this?"
"We make decisions post by post," Psaki said. "That's something that is constantly evaluated at a high level through the interagency process."
If ordinary Americans are confused, they're in good company. Analysts who've devoted their careers to studying al Qaida and U.S. counterterrorism strategy can't really make sense of it, either. There's general agreement that the diffuse list of potential targets has to do with either specific connections authorities are tracking, or places that might lack the defenses to ward off an attack. Beyond that, however, even the experts are stumped.
Take this sampling of reactions from prominent al Qaida observers:
"It's crazy pants – you can quote me," said Will McCants, a former State Department adviser on counterterrorism who this month joins the Brookings Saban Center as the director of its project on U.S. relations with the Islamic world.
"We just showed our hand, so now they're obviously going to change their position on when and where" to attack, said Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who was part of the team that hunted Osama bin Laden for years.
"It's not completely random, but most people are, like, 'Whaaat?' " said Aaron Zelin, who researches militants for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and blogs about them at Jihadology.net
"I'm not going to argue that it's not willy-nilly, but it's hard for me to come down too critical because I simply don't know their reasoning," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute.
In the absence of specifics about what the Obama administration refers to as a "specific threat," seasoned analysts were reluctant to comment because there's so little insight into the government's decision-making. Instead, a mix of speculation and conspiracy theory fills the void.
Online pundits parsed the timing: Did it have to do with President Barack Obama's birthday Sunday? (Doubtful.) Or the 15th anniversary of terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa? (But neither of the two targeted embassies is closed this time.) Perhaps the closings were timed to the Islamic holiday coming up this weekend? (Posts in Muslim countries would be closed, anyway.)
Self-appointed sleuths also tried – in vain – to divine a pattern in the locations of the closings. The Persian Gulf closures are understandable, as is the one in Djibouti, home to a U.S. drone base.
But Madagascar, best known for the eponymous animated movie about zoo animals? One theory was that it's linked to the mysterious 2007 assassination of bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, an al Qaida founder and financier. News reports at the time said that up to 30 gunmen – thought to be U.S. special forces – burst into Khalifa's home near a gemstone factory he owned, killed him in his bedroom and made off with his computer and other items.
A pretty tenuous connection, but at least there's an established al Qaida link to that theory. Not so with Mauritius, an island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa.
One tweet making the rounds in the counterterrorism Twitter sphere suggested that al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula "used to have a director of external ops, one of whose overseas recruits was from Mauritius." That claim – based on the IP address of a user in a now-defunct jihadist forum – was impossible to corroborate.
"There have been cases where jihadis have shown up in random countries," Zelin said. "But who really knows, honestly?"
Even darker scenarios were floated: Did recent al Qaida prison breaks free veteran fighters who'd be eager to carry out a sophisticated, multi-country attack? Was the U.S. government drumming up a threat to justify the extensive surveillance network of the National Security Agency? Or, conversely, was it jihadists planting a decoy threat now that they've been tipped off to the existence of the NSA programs?
Analysts said they'd hold out for hard facts before commenting.
"I've been ignoring all of it because there's an infinite range of possibilities," said Gartenstein-Ross. "It would be like speculating on the reboot of the 'Star Wars' series."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong number of attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. There were two. It also gave the wrong title for Will McCants, a former State Department adviser on counterterrorism.


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AHFC Wikipedia Page
This page covers our history and our current and past projects.
AHFC Facebook Fanpage
Show your support for the AFHC and join our Facebook Fanpage or click the like button below.
Canadian Conservation Institute
CCI Newsletter no. 33 May 2004, In Search Of The Avro Arrow, this article talks about the recovery efforts of the models of the Avro Arrow CF-105.
The Legend of the Arrow by George Shaw.
Dacom Technical Services
Servicing all computer needs, simple upgrades to major office installations and website hosting at great prices.
Canada 's leading high-value low-fare airline, offering scheduled service to 47 destinations in Canada, the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean, with its fleet of 73 Boeing Next-Generation 737-series aircraft..
CBC Digital Archives The Avro Arrow: Canada's Broken Dream
this is a great resource for audio and video clips on the Arrow and Avro.
The Avro Arrow Homepage
Independent Avro Arrow site created by R. Kyle Schmidt in 1995.
Arrow Digital Archives
is a website created by Arrow Recovery Canada an organization who's goal is to recover the lost Arrow models.
Randall Whitcomb Fine Art
this site is part of the Arrow Recovery Canada main site and is dedicated to the art of Randall Whitcomb.
this site is dedicated to the people and projects of AVRO Canada & Orenda Engines Limited.
The Arrow
the 1997 movie based on the Avro Arrow starring Dan Aykroy and Chrisopher Plummer.
Canadian Aviation and Space Museum
Canada's National Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa houses one of the only remaining pieces of the Avro Arrow.
Canadian War Museum
Canada's National War Museum in Ottawa houses artifacts and exhibitions on Canada's proud military heritage.
Canadian Air & Space Museum
Toronto's Premier Air & Space Museum and home of the Avro Arrow full scale metal replica.
National Airforce Museum of Canada
Located in Trenton Ontario on the 8 Wing/Canadian Forces Base Trenton .
Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame
Located between Edmonton and Red Deer, Alberta at the Reynolds - Alberta Museum.
Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum
Located in Hamilton Ontario this museum's collection houses warplanes from World War II to the present.
Zurakowski Park & Museum Project
Located in Barry's Bay Ontario this park is dedicated to Janusz 'Zura' Zurakowski famous aviator and test pilot of the CF-105 Avro Arrow, the museum project is underway.
Western Canada Aviation Museum
Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba this museum has many exhibits including an Avrocar.
Aero Space Museum of Calgary
promoting the appreciation of Western Canada's contribution to aviation and space.
Canadian Museum Of Flight
Located in Langley, British Columbia dedicated to bringing British Columbia's aviation past into the future.
Atlantic Canada Aviation Museum
Located in Halifax, Nova Scotia dedicated to preserving all aspects of Atlantic Canadian aviation.
Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre
Located in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario this museum is dedicated to Canada's rich bushplane and firefighting history.
Canadian Aviation Heritage Centre
Located in Ste. Anne-de-Believue Québec on the McGill Macdonald Campus this museum has many exhibits and ongoing restoration projects .
Canadian Aeronautical Preservation Association
(CAPA) exists to promote the preservation of aircraft, Canadian aviation history, and the retention in Canada of aircraft, airframes, associated artifacts and related materials significant to Canadian aviation.
Canadian Aviation Historical Society
the world's premier organization dedicated to preserving Canada's flying heritage
Canadian Historical Aircraft Association
it's mission is to honour Canadian Veterans by perserving and restoring antique and vintage military and civilian aircraft.
Canadian Aviation Expo
Canada's largest indoor aviation event held in Hamilton Ontario.
Canadian Aviation Artists Association
discover Canada's rich aviation heritage through art.
Canada's Air Force
the Canadian National Defence website.
NAV Canada
provides air traffic control, flight information, weather briefings, aeronautical information services, airport advisory services and electronic aids to navigation.
Aerospace Industries Associations of Canada
(AIAC) is a not-for-profit organization advocating on aerospace policy issues that have a direct impact on aerospace companies and aerospace jobs in Canada.
Canadian Owners and Pilots Association
(COPA) began in 1952 it is an organization dedicated to supporting and protecting the light aircraft sector of aviation in Canada.
this website has articles and forums on contemporary Canadian aviation.
Avro Arrow: The Story of the Avro Arrow From Its Evolution To Its Extinction
Written by Richard Organ, Ron Page, Don Watson and Les Wilkinson.
Storms of Controversy: The Secret Avro Arrow Files Revealed
Written by Palmiro Campagna.
Requiem for a Giant: A.V. Roe Canada and the Avro Arrow
Written by Palmiro Campagna.
Storms of Controversy: The Secret Avro Arrow Files Revealed
Written by Palmiro Campagna.
Arrows to the Moon: Avro's Engineers and the Space Race
Written by Chris Gainor.
Shutting Down the National Dream: A.V. Roe and the Tragedy of the Avro Arrow
Written by Greig Stewart.
An Arrow Through the Heart: The Life and Times of Crawford Gordon and the Avro Arrow
Written by Greig Stewart.
Arrow Pilot's Operating Instructions and RCAF Testing / Basing Plans
Forward by Lieutenant Colonel T. F.J. Leversedge.
The Avro Arrow: A Picture History
Written by Lawrence Miller.
Wingman: One Boy, One Small Town, and the Avro Arrow
Written by Clare Murray.
CANAV Books
Canada's Aviation Heritage Publisher for hundreds of books on Canada's rich aviation history.
Flying Canucks II: Pioneers of Canadian Aviation
Written by Peter Pigott.
Wings Across Canada: An Illustrated History of Canadian Aviation
Written by Peter Pigott.
On Canadian Wings: A Century of Flight
Written by Peter Pigott.
The Story of a Canadian in Aviation: From 1934 to 2009
Written by Chapman Dick Chapman.
Canadian Aviation
Written by Suzanne Kearns.
Canadian Wings
Written by Stephen Payne.
Aces, Warriors & Wingmen: The Firsthand Accounts of Canada's Fighter Pilots in the Second World War
Written by Wayne Ralph.
The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force
Written by W. A. B. Douglas.
Canadian Warplanes: Quick Reference Guide
Written by Harold A. Skaarup.
Canadian Warbirds of the Post-War Piston Era
Written by Harold A. Skaarup.
Props on Her Sleeve: The Wartime Letters of a Canadian Airwoman
Written by Carolyn Gossage and Mary Hawkins Buch.
The Sky's the Limit: Canadian Women Bush Pilots
Written by Joyce Spring.
From the CBC Archives this video is from the 1958 CBC Newsmagazine of the Avro Arrow Maiden Flight.
This CBC news clip is from the unveiling of the full-scale model of the Avro Arrow at the Canadian Air & Space Museum.
Toronto Star news clip from the unveiling of the full-scale model of the Avro Arrow at the Canadian Air & Space Museum.
NAIT Aircraft Structures program instructors and students have finished refurbishing a full-scale model of Canada's infamous Avro Arrow airplane at the Reynolds-Alberta museum in Wetaskiwin.
There Never Was An Arrow part 1 is a great documentary on Avro from 1979,
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
, and
part 6
are also up on Youtube.
Avro Arrow Promotional Video part 1 is a documentary on the Avro Arrow,
part 2
part 3
are up on Youtube.
Documentary To Good To Be True about the Avro Jetliner & Arrow. This film has
James C. Floyd
talking about his time at Avro. It is also introduced by
Elwy Yost
host of TV Ontario's Saturday Night at the Movies, who worked in the personnel department at Avro during these great days in Canadian aviation. This is part 1,
part 2
part 3
are on Youtube.
Documentary on the Avro CF-100 aircraft
part 2
part 3
are on Youtube.
Footage of the Avrocar and the
Sparrow II
A short bio on Jan Żurakowski from A Scattering Of Seeds: The Creation Of Canada produced by
White Pine Pictures
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Taggarts Land Rover Service Plans allow you to spread the cost of your regular servicing, through simple, interest-free monthly instalments, over a fixed term that suits you. This means there are no scheduled servicing bills to think about as well as securing today's prices for the length of your Plan. The plans cover your vehicle's routine servicing, including labour, parts and oils and provides an easy and affordable way to budget for your servicing needs.
Choose your Service Plan from our options below:
Ensuring your Land Rover is serviced by factory trained technicians on a regular basis will maintain your vehicle's performance and keep it operating to its optimum efficiency.
Any warranty on your vehicle will be protected. This, coupled with a full service history, will maintain your vehicle's resale value.
Servicing your Land Rover at Taggarts means you can also benefit from:
* Free collection and delivery to local areas subject to availability.
+Courtesy vehicles subject to availability and full comprenhensive insurance. Please enquire for details.
What happens if I change my vehicle?
No problem, your Service Plan benefits stay with you and your existing service fund will be re-assigned to your new vehicle regardless of make or model. Depending on the new vehicle and any changes to your mileage, your monthly payments may need to be recalculated to allow for changes.
Can I cancel my Service Plan?
You can cancel your service plan at any time. Please note an applicable cancellation fee will apply. The balance of any funds within your account will be refunded back to you. Simply contact us on the details which can be found overleaf.
What will happen if I move away from the area?
Lookers PLC operate businesses throughout the UK, all of which operate Service Plans, so your Plan will be transferable. We can service all makes and models within the Lookers group. In the event you do not wish to use an alternative Lookers centre to redeem service work, an applicable cancellation fee is applied when the Plan is cancelled.
How long will my service prices be fixed for?
If my mileage increases and I require more than one service a year, will both be covered?
Yes, if you recognise a period where your mileage will increase we can adjust your monthly payments to compensate.
If I pay up front, sell my vehicle and have no use for the Plan, will I receive a refund?
Yes, your current fund balance will be re-paid or it can be transferred to another vehicle. Applicable cancellation fee will apply.
If I miss a scheduled service, will I still covered by the Plan?
Yes, the funds continue to grow to cover any missed service which can be taken in the future, we will send you reminders to keep you aware of servicing requirements.
For further details contact us today and talk with our expert staff at one of our dealerships in Glasgow or Motherwell.


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YOU READ IT HERE FIRST! MARCH 19WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Anything that grows 'can convert into oil'
Company finds natural solution that turns plants into gasoline
After three years of clandestine development, a Georgia company is now going public with a simple, natural way to convert anything that grows out of the Earth into oil.
J.C. Bell, an agricultural researcher and CEO of Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., says he's isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally change plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks.
"What we're doing is taking the trash like corn stalks, corn husks, corn cobs – even grass from the yard that goes to the dump – that's what we can turn into oil," Bell told WND. "I'm not going to make asphalt, we're only going to make the things we need. We're going to make gasoline for driving, diesel for our big trucks."
Wood pulp is among the many natural materials that can be converted into oil and gasoline, according to Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., of Tifton, Ga.
The agricultural researcher made the discovery after standing downwind from his cows at his food-production company, Bell Plantation, in Tifton, Ga.
"Cows are like people that eat lots of beans. They're really, really good at making natural gas," he said. "It dawned on me that that natural gas was methane."
Bell says he wondered what digestive process inside a cow enabled it to change food into the hydrocarbon molecules of methane, so he began looking into replicating and speeding up the process.
"Through genetic manipulation, we've changed the naturally occurring bacteria, so they eat and consume biomass a little more efficiently," he said. "It works. There's not even any debate that it works. It really is an all-natural, simple process that cows use on a daily basis."
Naturally occurring bacteria used to convert biomass into hydrocarbons.
But does he think it will make environmentalists happy?
"They love this. We had one totally recognizable environmentalist from Hollywood say this is everything they ever had hoped for," Bell said. "This could be considered the ultimate recycling of carbon. We are using the energy of the sun through the plant. We're not introducing any new carbon [to the environment]."
The research has received strong support from the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture and committees in both chambers of Congress, and Bell plans further discussions in Washington, D.C., next week.
He expects to have the first pilot plant for the process running within two to three months, and will operate it for a year to collect engineering data to design full-scale production facilities. He thinks the larger facilities will be producing oil "inside the next two years."
And just how much oil is in Bell's bio-forecast?
"With minor changes in the agricultural and forestry products, we could create two to two and a half billion tons of biomass a year, and you're looking at 5 billion barrels of oil per year. That would be about two-thirds of what we use now."
Turning some of nature's produce into energy has been done for years, especially when it comes to the conversion of corn and cellulose-based products into ethanol, used to extend gasoline volume and boost octane.
The Energy Information Administration says in 2005, total U.S. ethanol production was 3.9 billion gallons, or 2.9 percent of the total gasoline pool.
Bell admits his bacterial breakthrough has been kept under wraps until now, but he plans to explain it all once his website is fully operational.
Bell Bio-Energy, Inc., aims to use modified bacteria like this to convert biomass into oil and gasoline within two years.
"We're actually gonna tell people how we do it, with streaming video. We're to the point now with our patent that we can say more and we fully intend to.
"We want to develop public support so they can understand what we're doing; to develop political support, because this is a combination of making the United States more independent from foreign oil sources; make [the country] healthier from an economic point of view; and it goes a long way to solving the environmental problems a lot of people are concerned about."
When asked why he thought no one else has patented this process, Bell answered, "It literally is because it's too simple. Everyone was looking for a real complicated mechanism. We looked at how it occurs naturally. But it's now going to develop in a hurry."
Recalling other great inventions, Bell cited on another person with his last name.
"Alexander Graham Bell put together stuff that was already on the shelf and made a phone. I don't want to compare myself to the great inventors. I'm not there yet, but to be able to look at simple things and create things from them, that's how we think in this company."
Are you a representative of the media who would like to interview the author of this story? Let us know.


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Rangers blank Habs, advance to Stanley Cup Final
Henrik Lundqvist was perfect on a night he needed to be.
After one of the toughest games of his career, the New York goalie bounced back with a performance that put the Rangers in the Stanley Cup finals.
Lundqvist wasn't overly busy in stopping all 18 shots he faced, but there was no margin for error as Dominic Moore's second-period goal was the only offense in New York's 1-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in Game 6 on Thursday night.
The Rangers, who spent parts of the season as a question mark to make the playoffs, are in the finals for the first time since winning the title 20 years ago.
"We played so well the entire game," Lundqvist said. "For me it was more about just being focused on the shots they had."
Lundqvist and the Rangers shook off a 7-4 loss on Tuesday night in Montreal when they had their first chance to end the Eastern Conference finals.
Video: Lundqvist throws stick making incredible save
Lundqvist quickly grew tired of the questions about that poor night, when he was yanked after allowing four goals in less than two periods. Now he is in the finals for the first time in his nine-year career.
"It's been tough," Lundqvist said. "You have so many highs. You have a few lows where you're questioning a lot of things, but then you just have to make up your mind, you can't have any excuses. I don't think I've been more determined to win a hockey game. To put ourselves in a spot where we can play for the Cup is extremely special."
Lundqvist leaped several times in his crease with his hands raised as streamers were fired off from the rafters at the final buzzer.
"It was just such a great feeling to see how we responded from the last game," Lundqvist said. "The third period, I think we played our best period of the playoffs. When it mattered the most, the guys really stepped up."
Lundqvist tied the team record for playoff shutouts with nine.
Video: Lundqvist reacts to his crazy save
The Rangers are the first team to advance to the finals after being stretched to seven games in the first two rounds. To celebrate, the Empire State Building was immediately lit up in the team's red, white and blue.
The Rangers don't have a captain, so assistants Brad Richards, Dan Girardi and Marc Staal, were called to accept the Prince of Wales Trophy but didn't touch it. The whole team joined them and posed for a photo while the Garden rocked with yells of "We Want The Cup!"
The Stanley Cup finals will begin Wednesday at either Chicago or Los Angeles, which leads the Western finals 3-2.
"It's something you feel good (about), but you have to keep in the back of your mind that this isn't the ultimate goal," Richards said. "It's an amazing achievement to be able to play for the Cup."
Montreal's Dustin Tokarski, who replaced injured No. 1 goalie Carey Price after Game 1, was solid in making 31 saves.
Video: Canadiens fall to Rangers, lose series 4-2
"It's pretty tough to have this opportunity to be a couple wins away from the Stanley Cup finals," Tokarski said. "I know it's going to be hard to come by again, but it was a heck of a series."
Montreal made one final push after Tokarski was pulled for an extra skater with 1:53 left. Lundqvist held off the Canadiens as fans chanted "Hen-rik! Hen-rik!"
The Rangers broke the deadlock late in the second after some good grinding work in the left corner by rugged forward Derek Dorsett. The puck came free to defenseman Ryan McDonagh, who sent it behind the net to Brian Boyle in the right corner. Boyle spotted Moore alone in the crease and fed a crisp pass for a hard shot that got through Tokarski with 1:53 left.
Moore punctuated his third goal of the playoffs with an emphatic fist pump and yell.
"Like any player on the team, you want to do your job," said Moore, who had six goals in the regular season. "In big games like this, every little bit counts."
Montreal then drew its second power play of the night when Richards was forced to hook Thomas Vanek as the struggling forward was making a strong drive in front from behind the net with 12.9 seconds remaining in the period.
The Canadiens failed on their two power plays and finished 2 for 23 in the series. Montreal had only five shots in both the first and third periods.
"It's not what we wanted," Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban said about the series. "Today they were opportunists. They scored a big goal and they really committed themselves to shutting it down after that."
Tokarski kept his club in it early in the third when the Rangers pushed for an insurance goal. Tokarski did splits and lunges to deny Derick Brassard on the doorstep after New York moved the puck out from behind the net.
Vanek nearly gave the Canadiens the lead with 4:45 to go in the second when he put a shot on net while Montreal had a mini 2-on-0 in front. Lundqvist made a desperate rolling move onto his back and got a piece of the puck with a swipe of his blocker, deflecting it away from the top of the net.
Montreal got back forward Brandon Prust after he served a two-game suspension for a late hit in Game 3 that broke Derek Stepan's jaw. Montreal's Dale Weise sat out two nights after he was wobbled by a hit to the head from John Moore that cost the Rangers' defenseman a two-game suspension that will carry into the Cup finals opener.
NOTES: Lundqvist earned his team-record 42nd career playoff victory. … The Rangers hadn't won a series in less than seven games since the first round in 2008 against New Jersey. … Montreal hasn't been to the Stanley Cup finals since winning the title in 1993. … The Rangers are in the finals for the 11th time.


text:
HI chris,
Let me know if you want to play any time soon on the westside.
Hi Chris,
My regular partner is away this weekend. Let me know if you're interested in playing this weekend or Monday, either at CSLA.
Thanks for the response, I am busy this weekend but we'll definitely hit soon.
Hey Chris,
Tonight is fine. Around what time and where do you usually hit?
© 2019 Created by Mark / The Mayor. Powered by


text:
Black Parka + Black Fox (Men)
This is a pre-order item, the product will be delivered to you within 20 business days after purchase.
Apply perfume or hairspray before you put on your fur. Avoid spraying cosmetic products around or directly on to the fur as most contain alcohol which can dry the hide and deteriorate the quality of the fur.Dry Clean or Professional Fur Clean Only.
Dry Clean Only
Note: This is a pre-order item, the product will be delivered to you within 20 business days after purchase.
Ozlana put their signature spin on the traditional Parka jacket, infusing the practical silhouette with bright color palettes, sequin embroidery and other feminine details. This luxurious jacket has been fashioned from pitch-black water re-system cotton canvas, boasting a striking blend of black raccoon fur and black fox fur lining and sleek leather trims. The essential outwear piece also features a fur trimmed hood, long sleeves, button cuffs, a zip and press stud fastening, flap pockets, a drawstring waist, a short length, a drawstring hem, a back slit at hem and a slim fit.
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Black Parka + Snowy Fox (Men)AU$ 835.00
Black and Khaki Parka (Men)AU$ 218.00
Green and Khaki Parka (Men)AU$ 218.00
Green Parka + Blue FoxAU$ 750.00
Green Parka + Silver FoxAU$ 745.00
Green Parka + Green Ice Cream FoxAU$ 825.00
Black Parka + White FoxAU$ 795.00
Green Parka + White Shark FoxAU$ 925.00


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Formulated by Einstein, the two-black-hole problem holds extremely important implications for astrophysics and cosmology.
Once upon a time, on a small planet in a galaxy called the Milky Way, black holes were considered a fascinating theoretical artifact from the mathematics of general relativity interesting concept, great stuff for science fiction. We've come a long way since 1915 when Einstein laid out his theory that rocked our world.
In 1969 American physicist John Wheeler coined the phrase that gives resonance to the concept of points in space-time where matter is so condensed, gravity so fiercely omnivorous, that it swallows everything, including light, that gets too close. Only 12 years ago, with observational evidence beginning to trickle in swirling gas and star coalescence at the center of galaxies Stephen Hawking wrote, prophetically, in A Brief History of Time: "The number of black holes may well be greater even than the number of visible stars."
Since 1994 the Hubble Space Telescope and, more recently, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have convincingly lifted black holes from theory into reality. With data from these eyes in space, scientists have identified over 30 likely black holes and counting. They come in a range of sizes, from supermassive (like the monster with the mass of 30 million suns at the center of the Andromeda galaxy) to many that are small ( a few solar masses) and most recently a middleweight (about 500 solar mass) in galaxy M82.
Still, even with Hubble and Chandra, the evidence is circumstantial. Fundamentally, a black hole is invisible. Looking for one, as Hawking said, is like trying to find a black cat in a coal cellar. The observations offer reasoned surmises about an undetectable agent lurking in the interior of detectable phenomena. As Penn State astrophysicist Pablo Laguna and post-doctoral fellow Deirdre Shoemaker like to point out, the way to clinch, indisputably, that black holes exist and that Einstein's equations are right is to detect gravity waves from two black holes.
Tuning the Gravity-Wave Radio
Detecting gravity waves is the job, a big one, cut out for LIGO, Virgo and GEO600. LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) is two NSF-funded gravity-wave detectors in Louisiana and Hanford, Washington now undergoing testing. Virgo and GEO600 are under construction in Europe (near Pisa, Italy and in Germany). Together these projects represent a pioneering effort that scientists hope will lead the way to an invaluable new set of eyes gravity eyes for seeing the universe. But it won't be easy, especially since no one ever has detected a gravity wave.
Along with anticipating black holes, Einstein's theory predicts that accelerating movements of massive objects in space, such as supernova explosions and black holes, will produce ripples traveling at light-speed through space-time. As with black holes, there's indirect evidence he was right, but compared to other wave phenomena, like electromagnetism, which brings us radio and TV, gravity waves are very weak. Einstein speculated they might never be detected. If you think of LIGO as the gigantic antenna for a radio receiver, the strongest possible signal might be a faint crackle as you turn the dial. To improve the chances of hearing the first crackle of gravity from the cosmos, LIGO needs to know where to set the dial to tune in two black holes colliding with each other.
To do this, researchers like Laguna and Shoemaker are using supercomputers, the most powerful they can find, to numerically solve Einstein's equations. Their field is called numerical relativity, and with collaborators at the University of Texas and the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State has assembled one of the leading groups in the world. In recent work, relying on systems at PSC, at NCSA in Illinois and elsewhere, this multi-university team successfully simulated two black holes merging in what's called a grazing collision only the second time this has been accomplished. Their numerical approach, called black-hole excision, makes a notable dent in the two-black-hole problem, the major challenge of this challenging field.
"Einstein's equations describe gravity via an elegant but complicated set of non-linear partial differential equations," says Laguna. "Their complexity requires the most powerful supercomputers available. Accurately solving the two-black-hole problem, formulated conceptually by Einstein 80 years ago, will represent an historic moment in the development of general relativity theory, with extremely important implications for astrophysics and cosmology."
The mathematics of a single spherical black hole sitting and spinning in space was worked out long ago by German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who in 1917 from his deathbed in effect discovered the black hole, without naming it, as one of the implications of Einstein's theory. A single black hole by itself, however, doesn't make gravity waves. Add another black hole, the interesting and many believe very relevant situation of two black holes merging with each other often called a binary black hole and you fiendishly complicate the mathematics, to the point where the only hope is supercomputers.
"As in most physical studies," says Shoemaker, "you want to look at the complicated and more realistic situations to test what you know. With general relativity, you can't put two of these compact objects together and get a solution without advanced computational techniques. Two black holes takes the theory into a dynamical regime, where you can make predictions and then, if experiments verify the predictions, you know how far the theory is correct."
It's a mutually beneficial relationship. To verify the predictions, you need detectors. LIGO, Virgo and GEO600, likewise, need predictions. Many believe that colliding black holes is the best shot at detecting gravity waves. Theory says it's one of the strongest signals on the gravity-wave dial. To know if a crackle of static is the dance of two black holes or cosmic noise, the detectors need the answers numerical relativists are working to provide.
Black Holes without the Holes
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," said Dante of the entrance to Hell. He might have said the same about the event horizon of a black hole. In solving Einstein's equations, Schwarzschild started with the idea of an infinitely condensed mass and showed that space-time curves around it and closes on itself. Once matter or light enters space-time within a certain radius from that point initially called the Schwarzschild radius, now the event horizon there's no escape. The region inside the horizon is cut off from events outside. This principle, called cosmic censorship, underlies black-hole excision.
The killer for simulating black holes is the singularity, the point of infinite density and space-time curvature that, mathematically speaking, makes a black hole a black hole. "The most crucial aspect of numerically evolving spacetimes containing black holes," says Laguna, "is without doubt the accurate and long-term handling of the singularities these objects represent."
Simply put, the numbers get too big too fast, and the computation crashes. "If you get too far inside the black hole," says Shoemaker, "you run into huge gradients that kill your calculations. There are basically two alternatives. In one of them you exploit the relativity of time; in effect you slow down how fast clocks tick near the black hole to avoid approaching that area. The other way is to remove the dangerous area. That's what we did."
The first approach, avoiding the singularity, has been more popular, and a group at the Albert Einstein Institute near Berlin has employed it with some success. It has the drawback that to slow down time inevitably adds to the already severe computational demands. With software they call AGAVE, the Penn State-Pittsburgh-Texas team has taken the less-traveled road of surgically removing the singularity from the domain of the calculation. About two years ago, the Pittsburgh group successfully excised the singularity for a single black hole moving in space. AGAVE extends this approach to colliding black holes, in effect, simulating two black holes without the black holes.
How, you might ask, can you compute gravity waves from a black hole if you eliminate the black hole? The secret, says Laguna, is in the horizon. Cosmic censorship. Since information about anything across that threshold is cut off, physical processes outside the horizon aren't affected by what happens inside. "As long as the spacetimes with and without the singularities agree at the points where the cut is made," says Laguna, "both situations should be equivalent for an observer outside."
Much easier to say than implement, notes Shoemaker. The numerical intricacies of cutting out the hole from the grid-like domain of the computation and, at the same time, keeping track of its movement in time, are daunting. Using PSC's CRAY T3E, AGAVE underwent extensive development and testing prior to the grazing collision simulation.
The grazing collision is a milestone compared to the symmetry of a head-on crash, which has been done before because it adds a layer of complexity and realism. With 40 processors of NCSA's SGI Origin 2000, it required nearly 100 hours. There's simplifying assumptions, such as two equal mass black holes, but the result is, you might say, a smashing success that pushes beyond prior work.
Excision tamed the numerical instabilities of the singularity long enough for the two black holes to merge completely and evolve for a short period as one large black hole before the simulation crashed. It's not the end of the road by any means, stress Laguna and Shoemaker. There's not yet accurate gravity-wave predictions to hand over to LIGO. But the next mountain now looks more climbable. That mountain, two black holes that orbit each other before they coalesce, is a few years away say the researchers.
Further help is coming, notes Laguna, whose eyes light up thinking of PSC's new terascale system, more than 2,700 powerful processors with a peak capability of over six-trillion calculations per second, a leap forward that will allow the team to push further with AGAVE. "We believe one of the severe problems we have now is that the merged black hole gets too close to the boundaries of the computational domain. With the new machine, we can shift the outer boundary outward."
Some day, not that far away, a crackle of static will come in from the cosmos. Was Einstein right? Are there really black holes? When two of these monsters swallow each other, does it create a tidal wave of gravity detectable on our tiny planet thousands or millions of light years away? Please place your bets now.


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The photograph is sent to me by a dearest friend from a sunny place which I don't envy at all! :)
When it comes to men the ones who take dressing up serious are my favourites. Fashion and being a good looking person is not just for women, right? This friend of mine is one of those!
When we go shopping together even I am the woman it takes him much more longer to leave the shop :D But apparently it is worth it!
His sunny day coffe break style:
Sunnies: Moscot
Leather jacket: Belstaff
Watch: Panerai
T-Shirt: Armani Jeans


text:
Style: Straight
Material: Synthetic
Length: Short
4 1/4" front and sides; 6 3/4" crown; 4" back and 1 3/4" nape.
Weight: 2.25 oz.
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It's funny now to think how "old" the 2008 series cards seem already. I don't know if that's a by-product of card blogging or what. In any case, here is some 'old skool' '08 Topps Series One:
Roger Clemens (Yankees), Jeff Kent (Dodgers), and Byung-Hyun Kim (Marlins) are the first three cards out of the pack. For what its worth, Kent is featured on some pretty cool Indians cards...
Brad Penny (Dodgers), Kevin Kouzmanoff (Padres), and Mark Grudzielanek (Royals) complete a trio of blue and gold dots. Kouzmanoff walked on the field for the Tribe, hit a grand slam on the first pitch, and was promptly sent to the Padres. Go figure.
Hanley Ramirez (Marlins - 50th Anniv card), Felix Hernandez (Mariners - YIR card), and a checklist... The 50th Anniversary cards are kinda cool for the whole retro thing that card companies seem to be stuck in. The 'Year-in-Reivew' is one of those cards the girls at Dinged Corners like 'cause it's kinda 'newspapery!' (I'm pretty sure I just made that word up unless they used it before me)
Jamey Carroll (Rockies) and Wladimir Balentien (Mariners) close up the pack. I have to admit, I had to check the back of the card to make sure Balentien's name actually started with a "W..."
Thursday, April 16, 2009
2008 Topps Series 1
2 comments:
- Scotty Hockey said...
I bought a seven card pack of these just because it was sitting at the ice cream parlor and got seven pitchers - Boof Bonser (misspelled Bosner), Dontrelle Willis, Rich Harden, Chad Cordero, Dan Wheeler, Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez. Just seemed strange ...
- unclemoe said...
I <3 08 Topps.
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text:
Eric Rodenbeck
Founder & Creative Director, Stamen DesignEric Rodenbeck is the founder and creative director of Stamen Design, a boutique design and application development firm in San Francisco, California. Stamen's focus on the combination of interactive data visualization and innovative design has attracted a growing client list to the studio, including BMW, MoveOn.org, ProChoiceAmerica, DesignworksUSA, and the University of Southern California. The studio actively pursues investigative projects alongside client work, resulting in a rich and ambitious cross-fertilization of ideas and technologies. Mappr.com, which places Flickr photos on an interactive map of the United States, is an example of the studio's web-based data visualization work. Stamen recently released Cabspotting.org, a collaboration with the Exploratorium, which builds live interactive maps based on GPS positions of taxicabs in San Francisco.
Rodenbeck is a ten-year veteran of the interactive design field, and has spent much of this time working to extend the boundaries of online media and live information visualization. His past endeavors include interactive storytelling and data-driven narrative at Quokka Sports, illustration and book design at Wired magazine and Wired Books, and founding the design collective Umwow. He has a degree in the History and Philosophy of Technology from The New School for Social Research.


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[This essay originally appeared as part of The Hooded Utilitarian's roundtable on Jean-Luc Godard here.]
To begin with, a generalization: Godardians really don't like Quentin Tarantino. But, fear not, this post isn't going to be about the latter, only the reasons expressed by the Godardians for their contempt. Wasn't it Jean-Luc Godard himself who argued against a clear distinction between the fictional film and the documentary? For him, being even more opposed to naïve realism than Andre Bazin, the camera always had a perspective, a position, or as Colin MacCabe puts it: "there is not reality and then the camera – there is reality seized at this moment and this way by the camera." [p. 79] It was this foundational belief that led to Godard's dismissal of the anti-aesthetic implicit within cinema vérité, that reality comes from letting the film roll. Yet, Jonathan Rosenbaum (and I might as well mention Daniel Mendelsohn and HU's very own Caroline Small) condemns Inglourious Basterds for "mak[ing] the Holocaust harder, not easier to grasp as a historical reality," because "anything that makes Fascism unreal is wrong." Evidently, contrary to Godard, fascism is just there waiting to have a camera pointed at it. No truth could possibly come out of a fantasy involving Nazism.


text:
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text:
Michael Douglas is 25 years older than wife Catherine Zeta-Jones – but this isn't the actor's first May-December relationship. The 65-year-old actor has revealed his very own Mrs. Robinson moment from his teen years.
"There were a couple friends of my mother's when I was 16 and they were 30," Michael told Elle Magazine in the magazine's May issue. "I wouldn't want to get any of them in trouble, but they're probably all dead by now."
The "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" star also confessed to his own "Fatal Attraction" moment during college.
"I remember a nut job back there in college during those sexually free days of the '60s when you didn't have to worry about a whole lot," he said. " I remember one woman who'd been pursuing me, and I'd gone back home and was in bed with another lady. At an unbelievably inopportune moment, she popped out of the closet. Let's just say that took care of the rest of the night."
The actor joked that incident didn't escalate to a "Fatal Attraction" finish, but said, "I did change the locks."
Michael also said in the interview that his father, Kirk Douglas, is an "outrageous flirt" and that he kept his past girlfriends away from the screen legend.
"I wouldn't even dare bring one home with him around. Look, he's been happily married for 55 years, so I don't want to get into this in great depth, but he's always been an outrageous flirt, and he takes no prisoners," Michael explained. "In the years before I met Catherine, there were a couple ladies who met him to whom he gave his most impressive showing. But that's healthy."
As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, last week, the actor's son, Cameron Douglas, was sentenced to 60 months in prison plus five years of supervised release, the result of pleading guilty to drug charges.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Celebrity May-December Romances
VIEW THE PHOTOS: They Dated Who?!? Surprising Former Couples!
PLAY IT NOW: Cameron Douglas: What Will Life Be Like Behind Bars?
PLAY IT NOW: Movie Trailer: 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'
MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: Michael Douglas - Catherine Zeta-Jones - Cameron Douglas - Movies - Former Couples


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Off-campus Access
Why is a special process for accessing library resources from off-campus needed?
Most of the library's subscription resources are restricted to users currently affiliated with Beloit College by publisher and vendor license agreements. This means that on-campus students, faculty, and staff are granted access to these resources via IP address recognition. Off-campus users, though, must prove that they are affiliated with the college by logging into a proxy server called EZproxy. This log-in process is known as "authentication."
How is authentication with EZproxy accomplished?
All of the library's licensed online resources have been configured to prompt off-campus users for EZproxy authentication. This process is triggered by a snippet of proxy server information that has been added to the beginning of resource URLs. When you attempt to access such a resource from off-campus, you will be taken to an EZproxy authentication screen as seen here:
To access the resource, simply supply your campus network username and password and click "Login." You will then be directed to your resource.
Once you are authenticated, your EZproxy session will continue until you close your browser. You will not need to re-authenticate to access other licensed resources in the same browser session. On-campus users will never be asked to authenticate via EZproxy.
I am working from off-campus and have found a link in Moodle or on a website to a licensed full-text resource, but I cannot access the full-text. What should I do?
In your browser's address bar, check for ezproxy.beloit.edu somewhere within the URL. If it is not present, insert the following in front of the URL:
You should then be allowed to authenticate and access the resource. If this process does not work, or if ezproxy.beloit.edu was already present in the URL upon first opening the link, please contact library staff.
When I attempted to access a licensed resource from off-campus, an error message appeared. What should I do?
Please contact library staff by using the contact information at http://www.beloit.edu/library/askalibrarian. Be prepared to provide the name of the resource that you are attempting to access and the route by which you are trying to gain access (e.g. via Moodle, via BELCAT, via the FindIt@Beloit button). We will work to resolve the problem.
Alternatively, you can log in to EZproxy directly and try again to access the resource or select a resource from the database menu.


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Laser, a device that stimulates atoms or molecules to emit light at particular wavelengths and amplifies that light, typically producing a very narrow beam of radiation. The emission generally covers an extremely limited range of visible, infrared, or ultraviolet wavelengths. Many different types of lasers have been developed, with highly varied characteristics. Laser is an acronym for "light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation."
The laser is an outgrowth of a suggestion made by Albert Einstein in 1916 that under the proper circumstances atoms could release excess energy as light—either spontaneously or when stimulated by light. German physicist Rudolf Walther Ladenburg first observed stimulated emission in 1928, although at the time it seemed to have no practical use.
In 1951 Charles H. Townes, then at Columbia University in New York City, thought of a way to generate stimulated emission at microwave frequencies. At the end of 1953, he demonstrated a working device that focused "excited" (see below Energy levels and stimulated emissions) ammonia molecules in a resonant microwave cavity, where they emitted a pure microwave frequency. Townes named the device a maser, for "microwave amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation." Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Prokhorov and Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov of the P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow independently described the theory of maser operation. For their work all three shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physics.
An intense burst of maser research followed in the mid-1950s, but masers found only a limited range of applications as low-noise microwave amplifiers and atomic clocks. In 1957 Townes proposed to his brother-in-law and former postdoctoral student at Columbia University, Arthur L. Schawlow (then at Bell Laboratories), that they try to extend maser action to the much shorter wavelengths of infrared or visible light. Townes also had discussions with a graduate student at Columbia University, Gordon Gould, who quickly developed his own laser ideas. Townes and Schawlow published their ideas for an "optical maser" in a seminal paper in the December 15, 1958, issue of Physical Review. Meanwhile, Gould coined the word laser and wrote a patent application. Whether Townes or Gould should be credited as the "inventor" of the laser thus became a matter of intense debate and led to years of litigation. Eventually, Gould received a series of four patents starting in 1977 that earned him millions of dollars in royalties.
The Townes-Schawlow proposal led several groups to try building a laser. The Gould proposal became the basis of a classified military contract. Success came first to Theodore H. Maiman, who took a different approach at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. He fired bright pulses from a photographer's flash lamp to excite chromium atoms in a crystal of synthetic ruby, a material he chose because he had studied carefully how it absorbed and emitted light and calculated that it should work as a laser. On May 16, 1960, he produced red pulses from a ruby rod about the size of a fingertip. In December 1960 Ali Javan, William Bennett, Jr., and Donald Herriott at Bell Labs built the first gas laser, which generated a continuous infrared beam from a mixture of helium and neon. In 1962 Robert N. Hall and coworkers at the General Electric Research and Development Center in Schenectady, New York, made the first semiconductor laser.
While lasers quickly caught the public imagination, perhaps for their similarity to the "heat rays" of science fiction, practical applications took years to develop. A young physicist named Irnee D'Haenens, while working with Maiman on the ruby laser, joked that the device was "a solution looking for a problem," and the line lingered in the laser community for many years. Townes and Schawlow had expected laser beams to be used in basic research and to send signals through air or space. Gould envisioned more powerful beams capable of cutting and drilling many materials. A key early success came in late 1963 when two researchers at the University of Michigan, Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks, used lasers to make the first three-dimensional holograms (see holography).
Helium-neon lasers were the first lasers with broad commercial applications. Because they could be adjusted to generate a visible red beam instead of an infrared beam, they found immediate use projecting straight lines for alignment, surveying, construction, and irrigation. Soon eye surgeons were using pulses from ruby lasers to weld detached retinas back in place without cutting into the eye. The first large-scale application for lasers was the laser scanner for automated checkout in supermarkets, which was developed in the mid-1970s and became common a few years later. Compact disc audio players and laser printers for personal computers soon followed.
Lasers have become standard tools in diverse applications. Laser pointers highlight presentation points in lecture halls, and laser target designators guide smart bombs to their targets. Lasers weld razor blades, write patterns on objects on production lines without touching them, remove unwanted hair, and bleach tattoos. Laser rangefinders in space probes profiled the surfaces of Mars and the asteroid Eros in unprecedented detail. In the laboratory, lasers have helped physicists to cool atoms to within a tiny fraction of a degree of absolute zero.
Fundamental principles
Energy levels and stimulated emissions
Laser emission is shaped by the rules of quantum mechanics, which limit atoms and molecules to having discrete amounts of stored energy that depend on the nature of the atom or molecule. The lowest energy level for an individual atom occurs when its electrons are all in the nearest possible orbits to its nucleus (see electronic configuration). This condition is called the ground state. When one or more of an atom's electrons have absorbed energy, they can move to outer orbits, and the atom is then referred to as being "excited." Excited states are generally not stable; as electrons drop from higher-energy to lower-energy levels, they emit the extra energy as light.
Einstein recognized that this emission could be produced in two ways. Usually, discrete packets of light known as photons are emitted spontaneously, without outside intervention. Alternatively, a passing photon could stimulate an atom or molecule to emit light—if the passing photon's energy exactly matched the energy that an electron would release spontaneously when dropping to a lower-energy configuration. Which process dominates depends on the ratio of lower-energy to higher-energy configurations. Ordinarily, lower-energy configurations predominate. This means that a spontaneously emitted photon is more likely to be absorbed and raise an electron from a lower-energy configuration to a higher-energy configuration than to stimulate a higher-energy configuration to drop to a lower-energy configuration by emitting a second photon. As long as lower-energy states are more common, stimulated emission will die out.
However, if higher-energy configurations predominate (a condition known as population inversion), spontaneously emitted photons are more likely to stimulate further emissions, generating a cascade of photons. Heat alone does not produce a population inversion; some process must selectively excite the atoms or molecules. Typically, this is done by illuminating the laser material with bright light or by passing an electric current through it.
The simplest conceivable system, such as the ammonia maser built by Townes, has only two energy levels. More useful laser systems involve three or four energy levels. In a three-level laser, the material is first excited to a short-lived high-energy state that spontaneously drops to a somewhat lower-energy state with an unusually long lifetime, called a metastable state. The metastable state is important because it traps and holds the excitation energy, building up a population inversion that can be further stimulated to emit radiation, dropping the species back to the ground state. The ruby laser developed by Theodore Maiman is an example of a three-level laser.
Unfortunately, the three-level laser works only if the ground state is depopulated. As atoms or molecules emit light, they accumulate in the ground state, where they can absorb the stimulated emission and shut down laser action, so most three-level lasers can only generate pulses. This difficulty is overcome in the four-level laser, where an extra transition state is located between metastable and ground states. This allows many four-level lasers to emit a steady beam for days on end.
Laser elements
Population inversions can be produced in a gas, liquid, or solid, but most laser media are gases or solids. Typically, laser gases are contained in cylindrical tubes and excited by an electric current or external light source, which is said to "pump" the laser. Similarly, solid-state lasers may use semiconductors or transparent crystals with small concentrations of light-emitting atoms.
An optical resonator is needed to build up the light energy in the beam. The resonator is formed by placing a pair of mirrors facing each other so that light emitted along the line between the mirrors is reflected back and forth. When a population inversion is created in the medium, light reflected back and forth increases in intensity with each pass through the laser medium. Other light leaks around the mirrors without being amplified. In an actual laser cavity, one or both mirrors transmit a fraction of the incident light. The fraction of light transmitted—that is, the laser beam—depends on the type of laser. If the laser generates a continuous beam, the amount of light added by stimulated emission on each round trip between the mirrors equals the light emerging in the beam plus losses within the optical resonator.
The combination of laser medium and resonant cavity forms what often is called simply a laser but technically is a laser oscillator. Oscillation determines many laser properties, and it means that the device generates light internally. Without mirrors and a resonant cavity, a laser would just be an optical amplifier, which can amplify light from an external source but not generate a beam internally. Elias Snitzer, a researcher at American Optical, demonstrated the first optical amplifier in 1961, but such devices were little used until the spread of communications based on fibre optics.
Laser beam characteristics
Laser light generally differs from other light in being focused in a narrow beam, limited to a narrow range of wavelengths (often called "monochromatic"), and consisting of waves that are in phase with each other. These properties arise from interactions between the process of stimulated emission, the resonant cavity, and the laser medium.
Stimulated emission produces a second photon identical to the one that stimulated the emission, so the new photon has the same phase, wavelength, and direction—that is, the two are coherent with respect to each other, with peaks and valleys in phase. Both the original and the new photon can then stimulate the emission of other identical photons. Passing the light back and forth through a resonant cavity enhances this uniformity, with the degree of coherence and the narrowness of the beam depending on the laser design.
Although a visible laser produces what looks like a point of light on the opposite wall of a room, the alignment, or collimation, of the beam is not perfect. The extent of beam spreading depends on both the distance between the laser mirrors and diffraction, which scatters light at the edge of an aperture. Diffraction is proportional to the laser wavelength divided by the size of the emitting aperture; the larger the aperture is, the more slowly the beam spreads. A red helium-neon laser emits from a one-millimetre aperture at a wavelength of 0.633 micrometre, generating a beam that diverges at an angle of about 0.057 degree, or one milliradian. Such a small angle of divergence will produce a one-metre spot at a distance of one kilometre. In contrast, a typical flashlight beam produces a similar one-metre spot within a few metres. Not all lasers produce tight beams, however. Semiconductor lasers emit light near one micrometre wavelength from an aperture of comparable size, so their divergence is 20 degrees or more, and external optics are needed to focus their beams.
The output wavelength depends on the laser material, the process of stimulated emission, and the optics of the laser resonator. For each transition between energy levels, a material can support stimulated emission over a limited range of wavelengths; the extent of that range varies with the nature of the material and the transition. The probability of stimulated emission varies with wavelength, and the process concentrates emission at wavelengths where that probability is the highest.
Resonant cavities support laser oscillation at wavelengths that meet a resonant condition—an integral number N of wavelengths λ must equal the distance light travels during a round trip between the mirrors. If the cavity length is L and the refractive index of the material in the laser cavity is n, the round-trip distance 2L must equal Nλ/n, or 2L = Nλ/n. Each resonance is called a longitudinal mode. Except in semiconductor lasers, cavities are thousands of wavelengths long, so the wavelengths of adjacent modes are closely spaced—and usually the laser simultaneously emits light on two or more wavelengths within 0.1 percent of each other. These beams are monochromatic for most practical applications; other optics can be added to limit laser oscillation to a single longitudinal mode and an even narrower range of wavelengths. The best laboratory lasers emit a range of wavelengths that differ by less than 0.0000001 percent.
The narrower the range of wavelengths, the more coherent the beam—meaning the more precisely every light wave in the beam is in exact synchronization with every other one. This is measured by a quantity called coherence length. If the centre of the range of wavelengths emitted is λ and the range of wavelengths emitted is Δλ, this coherence length equals λ2/2Δλ. Typical coherence lengths range from millimetres to metres. Such long coherence lengths are essential, for instance, to record holograms of three-dimensional objects.
Lasers can generate pulsed or continuous beams, with average powers ranging from microwatts to over a million watts in the most powerful experimental lasers. A laser is called continuous-wave if its output is nominally constant over an interval of seconds or longer; one example is the steady red beam from a laser pointer. Pulsed lasers concentrate their output energy into brief high-power bursts. These lasers can fire single pulses or a series of pulses at regular intervals. Instantaneous power can be extremely high at the peak of a very short pulse. Laboratory lasers have generated peak power exceeding 1015 watts for intervals of about 10−12 second.
Pulses can be compressed to extremely short duration, about 5 femtoseconds (5 × 10−15 second) in laboratory experiments, in order to "freeze" the action during events that occur very rapidly, such as stages in chemical reactions. Laser pulses also can be focused to concentrate high powers on small spots, much as a magnifier focuses sunlight onto a small spot to ignite a piece of paper.
Types of lasers
Crystals, glasses, semiconductors, gases, liquids, beams of high-energy electrons, and even gelatin doped with suitable materials can generate laser beams. In nature, hot gases near bright stars can generate strong stimulated emission at microwave frequencies, although these gas clouds lack resonant cavities, so they do not produce beams.
In crystal and glass lasers, such as Maiman's first ruby laser, light from an external source excites atoms, known as dopants, that have been added to a host material at low concentrations. Important examples include glasses and crystals doped with the rare-earth element neodymium and glasses doped with erbium or ytterbium, which can be drawn into fibres for use as fibre-optic lasers or amplifiers. Titanium atoms doped into synthetic sapphire can generate stimulated emission across an exceptionally broad range and are used in wavelength-tunable lasers.
Many different gases can function as laser media. The common helium-neon laser contains a small amount of neon and a much larger amount of helium. The helium atoms capture energy from electrons passing through the gas and transfer it to the neon atoms, which emit light. The best-known helium-neon lasers emit red light, but they also can be made to emit yellow, orange, green, or infrared light; typical powers are in the milliwatt range. Argon and krypton atoms that have been stripped of one or two electrons can generate milliwatts to watts of laser light at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. The most powerful commercial gas laser is the carbon-dioxide laser, which can generate kilowatts of continuous power.
The most widely used lasers today are semiconductor diode lasers, which emit visible or infrared light when an electric current passes through them. The emission occurs at the interface (see p-n junction) between two regions doped with different materials. The p-n junction can act as a laser medium, generating stimulated emission and providing lasing action if it is inside a suitable cavity. Conventional edge-emitting semiconductor lasers have mirrors on opposite edges of the p-n junction, so light oscillates in the junction plane. Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) have mirrors above and below the p-n junction, so light resonates perpendicular to the junction. The wavelength depends on the semiconductor compound.
A few other types of lasers are used in research. In dye lasers the laser medium is a liquid containing organic dye molecules that can emit light over a range of wavelengths; adjusting the laser cavity changes, or tunes, the output wavelength. Chemical lasers are gas lasers in which a chemical reaction generates the excited molecules that produce stimulated emission. In free-electron lasers stimulated emission comes from electrons passing through a magnetic field that periodically varies in direction and intensity, causing the electrons to accelerate and release light energy. Because the electrons do not transition between well-defined energy levels, some specialists question whether a free-electron laser should be called a laser, but the label has stuck. Depending on the energy of the electron beam and variations in the magnetic field, free-electron lasers can be tuned across a wide range of wavelengths. Both free-electron and chemical lasers can emit high powers.
Laser applications
Lasers deliver coherent, monochromatic, well-controlled, and precisely directed light beams. Although lasers make poor choices for general-purpose illumination, they are ideal for concentrating light in space, time, or particular wavelengths. For example, many people were first introduced to lasers by concerts in the early 1970s that incorporated laser light shows, in which moving laser beams of different colours projected changing patterns on planetarium domes, concert-hall ceilings, or outdoor clouds.
Most laser applications fall into one of a few broad categories: (1) transmission and processing of information, (2) precise delivery of energy, and (3) alignment, measurement, and imaging. These categories cover diverse applications, from pinpoint energy delivery for delicate surgery to heavy-duty welding and from the mundane alignment of suspended ceilings to laboratory measurements of atomic properties.
Transmission and processing of information
Laser scanners
The ability to focus laser beams onto very small spots and to switch them on and off billions of times per second makes lasers important tools in telecommunications and information processing. In laser supermarket scanners, a rotating mirror scans a red beam while clerks move packages across the beam. Optical sensors detect light reflected from striped bar codes on packages, decode the symbol, and relay the information to a computer so that it can add the price to the bill.
Optical discs
Tiny, inexpensive semiconductor lasers read data from a growing variety of optical compact disc formats to play music, display video recordings, and read computer software. Audio compact discs, using infrared lasers, were introduced around 1980; CD-ROMs (compact disc read-only memory) for computer data soon followed. Newer optical drives use more powerful lasers to record data on light-sensitive discs called CD-R (recordable) or CD-RW (read/write), which can be played in ordinary CD-ROM drives. DVDs (digital video, or versatile, discs) work similarly, but they use a shorter-wavelength red laser to read smaller spots, so the discs can hold enough information to play a digitized motion picture. A new generation of discs called Blu-ray uses blue-light lasers to read and store data at an even higher density.
Fibre-optic communication systems
Fibre-optic communication systems that transmit signals more than a few kilometres also use semiconductor laser beams. The optical signals are sent at infrared wavelengths of 1.3 to 1.6 micrometres, where glass fibres are most transparent. This technology has become the backbone of the global telecommunications network, and most telephone calls traveling beyond the confines of a single town go part of the way through optical fibres.
Precise delivery of energy
Industrial uses
Laser energy can be focused in space and concentrated in time so that it heats, burns away, or vaporizes many materials. Although the total energy in a laser beam may be small, the concentrated power on small spots or during short intervals can be enormous. Although lasers cost much more than mechanical drills or blades, their different properties allow them to perform otherwise difficult tasks. A laser beam does not deform flexible materials as a mechanical drill would, so it can drill holes in materials such as soft rubber nipples for baby bottles. Likewise, laser beams can drill or cut into extremely hard materials without dulling bits or blades. For example, lasers have drilled holes in diamond dies used for drawing wire.
Medical applications
Surgical removal of tissue with a laser is a physical process similar to industrial laser drilling. Carbon-dioxide lasers burn away tissue because their infrared beams are strongly absorbed by the water that makes up the bulk of living cells. A laser beam cauterizes the cuts, stopping bleeding in blood-rich tissues such as the female reproductive tract or the gums. Laser wavelengths near one micrometre can penetrate the eye, welding a detached retina back into place, or cutting internal membranes that often grow cloudy after cataract surgery. Less-intense laser pulses can destroy abnormal blood vessels that spread across the retina in patients suffering from diabetes, delaying the blindness often associated with the disease. Ophthalmologists surgically correct visual defects by removing tissue from the cornea, reshaping the transparent outer layer of the eye with intense ultraviolet pulses.
Through the use of optical fibres similar to the tiny strands of glass that carry information in telephone systems, laser light can be delivered to places within the body that the beams could not otherwise reach. One important example involves threading a fibre through the urethra and into the kidney so that the end of the fibre can deliver intense laser pulses to kidney stones. The laser energy splits the stones into fragments small enough to pass through the urethra without requiring surgical incisions. Fibres also can be inserted through small incisions to deliver laser energy to precise spots in the knee joint during arthroscopic surgery.
Another medical application for lasers is in the treatment of skin conditions. Pulsed lasers can bleach certain types of tattoos as well as dark-red birthmarks called portwine stains. Cosmetic laser treatments include removing unwanted body hair and wrinkles.
High-energy lasers
Scientists have shown that lasers can concentrate extremely high powers in either pulses or continuous beams. Major applications for these high-power levels are fusion research, nuclear weapons testing, and missile defense.
Extremely high temperatures and pressures are needed to force atomic nuclei to fuse together, releasing energy. In the 1960s physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California calculated that intense laser pulses could produce those conditions by heating and compressing tiny pellets containing mixtures of hydrogen isotopes. They suggested using these "microimplosions" both to generate energy for civilian use and to simulate the implosion of a hydrogen bomb, which involves similar processes. Since then, Livermore has built a series of lasers to test and refine these theories, primarily for the U.S. government's nuclear weapons program.
Military laser weapon research also dates back to the 1960s, but it attracted little attention until President Ronald Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. High-energy lasers offer a way to deliver destructive energy to targets at the speed of light, which is very attractive for fast-moving targets such as nuclear missiles. Military researchers have tested high-energy lasers for use as weapons on land, at sea, in the air, and in space, although no high-energy lasers have been placed in orbit. Experiments have shown that massive lasers can generate high powers; however, tests have also shown that the atmosphere distorts such powerful beams, causing them to spread out and miss their targets. These problems and the end of the Cold War slowed research on laser weapons, though interest continues in laser weapons to defend against smaller-scale missile attacks.
Alignment, measurement, and imaging
Surveyors and construction workers use laser beams to draw straight lines through the air. The beam itself is not visible in the air except where scattered by dust or haze, but it projects a bright point on a distant object. Surveyors bounce the beam off a mirror to measure direction and angle. The beam can set an angle for grading irrigated land, and a rotating beam can define a smooth plane for construction workers installing walls or ceilings.
Pulsed laser radar can measure distance in the same manner as microwave radar by timing how long it takes a laser pulse to bounce back from a distant object. For instance, in 1969 laser radar precisely measured the distance from the Earth to the Moon, and in the 1970s military laser range finders were developed to measure the distance to battlefield targets accurately. Laser range finding is now widely used for remote sensing. Instruments flown on aircraft can profile the layers of foliage in a forest, and the Mars Global Surveyor (see Mars: Spacecraft exploration) used a laser altimeter to map elevations on the Martian surface.
Interferometry and holography
The coherence of laser light is crucial for interferometry (see optical interferometer) and holography, which depend on interactions between light waves to make extremely precise measurements and to record three-dimensional images. The result of adding light waves together depends on their relative phases. If the peaks of one align with the valleys of the other, they will interfere destructively to cancel each other out; if their peaks align, they will interfere constructively to produce a bright spot. This effect can be used for measurement by splitting a beam into two identical halves that follow different paths. Changing one path just half a wavelength from the other will shift the two out of phase, producing a dark spot. This technique has proved invaluable for precise measurements of very small distances.
Holograms are made by splitting a laser beam into two identical halves, using one beam to illuminate an object. This object beam then is combined with the other half—the reference beam—in the plane of a photographic plate, producing a random-looking pattern of light and dark zones that record the wave front of light from the object. Later, when laser light illuminates that pattern from the same angle as the reference beam, it is scattered to reconstruct an identical wave front of light, which appears to the viewer as a three-dimensional image of the object. Holograms now can be mass-produced by an embossing process, as used on credit cards, and do not have to be viewed in laser light.
Research tool
The ability to control laser wavelength and pulse duration precisely has proved invaluable for fundamental research in physics and other sciences. Lasers have been particularly important in spectroscopy, the study of the light absorbed and emitted when atoms and molecules make transitions between energy levels, which can reveal the inner workings of atoms. Lasers can concentrate much more power into a narrow range of wavelengths than other light sources, which makes them invaluable in analyzing fine spectroscopic details.
For example, simultaneously illuminating samples with laser beams coming from opposite directions can cancel the effects of the random motions of atoms or molecules in a gas. This technique has greatly improved the precision of the measurement of the Rydberg constant, which is critical in calculations of atomic properties, and it earned Arthur Schawlow a share of the 1981 Nobel Prize for Physics. Nicolaas Bloembergen shared the prize for developing other types of high-precision laser spectroscopy.
Since that early work, laser spectroscopy has expanded considerably. Laser pulses have been used to take snapshots of chemical reactions as they occur, on time scales faster than atomic vibrations in a molecule. These techniques have given chemists new ways to understand chemical physics, and they earned Ahmed Zewail the 1999 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Thanks to his work, the Nobel Committee wrote, "we have reached the end of the road: no chemical reactions take place faster than this."
Physicists also have used the subtle forces exerted by laser beams to slow and trap atoms, molecules, and small particles. Arthur Ashkin, a researcher at Bell Labs, showed that a tightly focused horizontal laser beam could trap atoms in the zone with highest light intensity, a technique called "optical tweezers" now used in a variety of research. Other research has shown that laser illumination can slow the motion of atoms if its wavelength is tuned to a point slightly off the wavelength of peak absorption. The atoms repeatedly absorb photons from the beam and then emit photons in random directions. The photon momentum slows the motion toward the laser beam. Placing the atoms at the junction of six laser beams aimed at right angles to each other slows their momentum in all directions, producing a clump of atoms less than 0.001 degree above absolute zero. Adding a magnetic field improves confinement and can reduce their temperature to less than one-millionth degree above absolute zero. These techniques have led to the creation of a new state of matter, called a Bose-Einstein condensate, and they earned Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, and William D. Phillips the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
radiation: Treatment with lasersThe laser is used increasingly for surgery, as it has proved to be a finely controlled and relatively bloodless means of dissecting and destroying tissue. By "tuning" the laser to different wavelengths, one can vary the extent to which its light is absorbed in…
spectroscopy: Laser sourcesLasers are line sources that emit high-intensity radiation over a very narrow frequency range. The invention of the laser by the American physicists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes in 1958, the demonstration of the first practical laser by the American physicist Theodore Maiman…
poison: LasersLasers are high-energy light beams, visible and nonvisible, generated by atoms at an excited state and further amplified by optics. Like most other nonionizing radiation, lasers can produce skin burns. Visible lasers, with a wavelength from 0.4 to 1.4 micrometres, will cause retinal damage…
welding: Laser weldingLaser welding is accomplished when the light energy emitted from a laser source is focused upon a workpiece to fuse materials together. The limited availability of lasers of sufficient power for most welding purposes has so far restricted its use in this area.…
radiation: Absorption and emission…possible by employment of the laser, a light source developed by the American physicists Arthur L. Schawlow and Charles H. Townes (1958) from the application of one of the Einstein equations. Einstein suggested (on the basis of a principle of detailed balancing, or microscopic…
More About Laser59 references found in Britannica articles
Assorted References
- ceramics
- toxicology and radiation
- use of glow discharge
- X-ray laser
digital sound recording
- compact discs
- In compact disc
- atomic physics
- computerized typesetters
- holography
- In Dennis Gabor
- In optics: Theory


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