IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. This is a ruby crystal from Theodore ...

Light's shadow: Researchers showed that a laser beam can sometimes act like a solid object and cast a shadow that is visible to the naked eye. In the picture, the shadow appears as the horizontal line ...

Dr. Theodore Maiman studies a ruby crystal in the shape of a cube in a laser. Photo courtesy Bettman/Corbis View Slideshow __1960: __Physicist Theodore Maiman uses a synthetic-ruby crystal to create ...

After nine months of intensive study, physicist Theodore Maiman was hoping for a flash of brilliance. It was spring 1960, and Maiman had been working with an assistant, Irnee D’Haenens, at the Hughes ...

Fifty years ago Sunday, a Hughes Labs researcher named Theodore Maiman changed the world. That day, Maiman became the first person on Earth to build a working laser, something that colleagues at a ...

1960: Physicist Theodore Maiman uses a synthetic-ruby crystal to create the first laser. Maiman began tinkering with electronic devices in his teens and even earned college money repairing appliances ...