When I first learned about stimulated emission formulated by Einstein, it was part of introduction to LASER in my post graduation days. If you think I was introduced to it late and that I should have been introduced to it much before in my graduate days or during my high school you are right - I was introduced to it much earlier but never really grasped it and neither do I have any vivid memory of learning it before my post graduation days. Now, because I understood it only with respect to LASER I kind of had the idea that amplification must have been on the mind of Einstein after he formulated it. Also I had the idea that after the stimulated emission was formulated, the scientific world saw clearly that LASER were in principle possible. The only hurdle was to have the technology to do it. Looks like that was not the story!!!
I came across this video wherein Charles Townes, who is credited with developing the MASER - a predecessor to LASER, talks about the time when the idea of MASER came to his mind. What really interested me though was when he mentions that Einstein didn't think much about the amplification and its application!!
IF you are used to watching videos on youtube then you will find the video quality pretty ordinary. Nevertheless, the man in the video is not. Because his work led to the development of LASER which now plays such a vital role in our high tech world.
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