[en] Quiz!

[NaVatar]

I will take G)

[Traveller]

I wanted history, but I didn't took part in the April insurrection from 1876, so I failed when I had to write about it and had to choose "Communication and information technologies" in order to fool the militaries (which in the end fooled me, as they wouldn't take me even if I wasn't "studying").

Ontopic: If I have to choose completely blindly - H.

[Xuca]

You don't have civilian military trainingin Bulgaria? We have here, but it lasts few months longer...

[Plethora]

It seems my reply to this question was wrong. At least I was almost there, my answer was in fact who had actually first developed the laser and not its technology. In any case none of the choices given were correct to start off with although I feel that you were looking at "E)" as the correct one. Due to this, I will go through each option and give an explanation to refute the possible answers. Finishing with the correct answer at the end.

Original Post:
Who developed the LASER technology?

A) Mervin Kelly:
Invented the transistor, what a revolutionary invention. I knew the name sounded familiar. INCORRECT ANSWER

B) Albert Einstein:
Laid the foundation for the invention of the laser and its predecessor, the MASER in 1916 using a revolutionary rederivation of Max Planck's law of radiation. However, this idea was forgotten until after WW2. INCORRECT ANSWER

C) Charles Towne:
In 1953 with the contribution of James P. Gordon and Herbert J. Zeiger produced the first MASER. A MASER is a device operating on similar principles to the laser, but producing microwave rather than optical radiation. Furthermore, his MASER was incapable of producing a continuous output. INCORRECT ANSWER

D) Arthur Schawlow:
In 1957 with the help of Charles Towne (At Bell Labs) STUDIED the ability to produce a MASER with visible light. Infrared frequencies were dismissed, instead they focused on the visible light spectrum. This idea was called an Optical MASER. They even wrote a thesis on this, which was published (some scientific journal). A patent application was made. INCORRECT ANSWER, they only STUDIED it, not developed it.

E) Arthur Schawlow and Charles Towne:
Further developed the idea of the MASER, while proposing and adding to the idea of the LASER, INCORRECT ANSWER, read above statement in D)

F) James P. Gordon and HL Zeiger:
Developed the MASER, NOT CORRECT, read above statement in A)

G) Charles Towne, James P. Gordon and HL Zeiger
NOT CORRECT, read statement A)

H) Arthur Schawlow, James P. Gordon and HL Zeiger
NOT CORRECT, read statement A)

The correct answer (Not given as a choice) would be "Gordon Gould" who in fact proposed the name LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation) in the first place, in a paper published in 1959. In fact his original idea of the name was suppose to be "aser" with the appropriate prefix added according to the spectra of light emitted. For example: X-ray laser = xaser. The only term that actually stuck was raser for radio frequency devices. In fact when requesting a patent, the US Patent Office denied him. He finally won the patent in 1987 (Talk about a lengthy waiting time, I might add that the discovery of HIV had the same fate, which made further research into the matter a lengthy ordeal. It was in fact a French team that had discovered it first led by the brilliant Luc Montagnier, yet Robert Gallow undermined them. It's along story but the French team finally won their case. Yet, it is still considered a "Co-discovery" which is incorrect. This is actually a rather long issue, I'll leave it, but if someone wishes to know more just say so.) Therefore laser technology was first proposed by Einstein, further developing the idea were Charles H. Townes,James P. Gordon and Herbert J. Zeiger by inventing the maser. Charles Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow developed the idea even further by actually inventing the MASER and further developed the idea of the laser which was finally actually put on paper and fully created by Gordon Gould which was then in fact realized as a working device by Theodore H. Maiman in 1960. I might add that he beat the other teams in the actual development of the device.

So to make this incredibly long answer short, the correct answer is Gordon Gould, although I am positive that you were looking for E) Charles Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. Yet this is not correct since they had only proposed an idea which was similar yet not entirely the same as laser.

Recognition for the elaborate history must be given to a friend of mine J. Cantu (absolutely brilliant in physics, not to shabby in medicine either hehe just kidding).

[Dobber]

The correct answer is in fact
E) Arthur Schawlow and Charles Towne

They invented the Laser in 1958 at Bell Laboratories and received a patent for the invention of the Laser. As you stated Maiman built the first working Laser in 1960, but the actual invention came about from the development of the Maser.

http://www.bell-labs.com/history/laser/invention/invention8.html#


Somebody ask a question, and you don't have to worry about my question phrasing anymore! I will participate in other game threads and leave this one be!

[Plethora]

Why leave Dobber, you should stay, your comments in my opinion are very welcomed. Anyhow, although you are correct, both Townes and Schawlow did have a patent you missed the point I had made. They did have a patent, as I had said they were studying its feasibility, just as Gordon Gould was. In 1958, Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow theorized about a visible laser, an invention that would use infrared and/or visible spectrum light. Now unfortunately for Gordon Gould, he failed to file for the patent for his invention until 1959 supposedly due to bad legal advice. Now to the present time. A judge in 1977 said the Patent Office "made several material errors" in rejecting the application made by Gould. The laser-patent war raged for three decades, at times bitterly dividing the laser world. It was 3 decades until he finally got full patent rights. Oddly enough that turned out to be a good thing, because he received a larger sum of royalties due to the fact that laser technology actually took off during that time frame.

It started in 1957 in the physics department of Columbia University (New York, NY), where 3 years earlier professor Charles Townes had demonstrated the first maser. Townes and Arthur L. Schawlow, then at Bell Telephone Laboratories, were trying to extend the maser principle to infrared and optical wavelengths in which they published a paper on the subject. Gordon Gould, then a 37-year-old graduate student working with Polykarp Kusch, also became intrigued by the idea. While Schawlow and Townes analyzed the possibilities carefully with the intent of publishing the results in a scholarly journal, Gould poured his ideas into a notebook and had it notarized so he could apply for a patent. Had Gould gotten good legal advice then, he might have pre-empted the long laser-patent war by applying for a patent before Townes and Schawlow. However, he thought he first had to reduce the idea to practice. As previously stated, it was in 1987 that he finally won the legal battle in which the US Court of Customs and Patent Appeals granted him the patents and thus made him the first to develop laser technology. There are still many, scientist that disagree and yet there are others that agree. It is similar to who actually created modern calculus. Was it Isaac Newton or Gottfried Leibniz. Almost any math teacher you speak to, they would certainly say Newton. Yet, Leibniz and Newton pulled these ideas together into a coherent whole and they are usually credited with the independent and nearly simultaneous creation of calculus. Newton was the first to apply calculus to physics and Leibniz developed much of the notation used in calculus today; he often spent days determining appropriate symbols for concepts, talk about a boring day. There has been considerable debate about whether Newton or Leibniz was first to come up with the important concepts of calculus. The truth of the matter is that the ideas of calculus were a part of the mathematical knowledge of their day, and they independently put those pieces together in different but coherent ways. It is now thought that Newton had discovered several ideas related to calculus earlier than Leibniz; but Leibniz published first. Today, both are given equal credit. Thus, just as with calculus, the laser in many ways follows the same path. There is also another part of this story, Gould was a Marxist which made his battles that much greater. Could you imagine the troubles he had as an outspoken Marxist during the cold war...ouch.

I can actually think of another similar matter. As I had said before, the history of discoveries is full of battles, especially earlier on. I mentioned the discovery of HIV (cause of AIDS), we have laser and another one is....discovery of insulin. It is normally acredited to Banting and Macleod, even winning the 1923 Novel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Yet, there is clear evidence that this is not true. Before continuing, if one actually reads the journal they had wrote, one would come to a fascinating conclusion. Their results about the hyperglycemia of diabetic dogs, using a pancreatic extract was basically a paper confirming the conclusions made by a Nicolae Paulescu's paper, with direct references to that article. In 1916, Paulescu obtained an aqueous pancreatic extract which, injected into a diabetic dog, proved efficacious. After a gap caused by WW1, he resumed his research and succeeded in isolating the antidiabetic pancreatic hormone he termed Pancreine. From April 24 to June 23, 1921, Paulescu published four papers at the Romanian Section of the Society of Biology in Paris.

1) The effect of the pancreatic extract injected into a diabetic animal by way of the blood.
2) The influence of the time elapsed from the intravenous pancreatic injection into a diabetic animal.
3) The effect of the pancreatic extract injected into a normal animal by way of the blood.

He also patented the process of manufacturing the pancreine with patent no. 6254 of April 10, 1922 at the Minister of Industry and Trade in Romania. Eight months later we get Bantins/Macleods paper in which the following year, to everyone's surprise, Banting/Macleod received the Noble Prize 1923. The merits of Nicolae Paulescu, as being the first to discover the insulin, were recognized only after 50 years from the first patent of procedure to produce insulin.

He was criticised for expressing his anti-semitic and anti-masonic views in some articles. Basically, the Nobel Committee in 1923 judged the entire persona of its laureate and concluded that Paulescu's brutal inhumanity nullifies any scientific merit. Although I agree that his views were wrong, scientific merit is based on discovery and not the persona per say. I am Canadian and to be honest it angers me that we still teach that Banting/Macleod were the first to discover insulin. This simply is not true. Anyway I believe that a similar situation occured to Gordon Gould and I am sure to many others.

Wow, sorry that was insanely long. But what is greater then the aquisition of knowledge? The fact that two people may in fact argue about a subject is proof of such an idea. Dobber, I hope that you'll still come in here to write/answer questions.

[Dobber]

And now we have turned the quiz thread into another "Did you know thread" and we already have one of those in the Webmaster's Inn.

I think that the quiz thread should be as it was proposed to be by it's starter Kuno and that is a question answer thread without all the detailed explanations and discussion being carried on now. We have the DMZ for discussions such as the present.

[Plethora]

Understood, however why don't we allow the people to decide. This is what "forum" is actually about, the ability to discuss, share etc.

So people, it's up to you, lets make a quick basic vote. Do you find the fact that there is some information with the answers/questions? In other words it should be as Dobber says, just an answer and nothing more. Or do you preffer that extra info, to help inform you all?

[Dobber]

This is a game thread, not a discussion thread. We have areas in the forum for discussions. Sometimes discussions get heated, and stray off track of the original purpose of the thread just as this one is currently doing. You were not here when the DMZ was created just because of that very thing. There have been threads that wind up being closed because the discussion in them got so heated when people took them off-topic or became ctitical of the the threads intended content.

A lot of Traveller's questions are about history topics that he first informed the community of in the History thread in the DMZ. It gets people to go read his comments there in order to find the answer to his question. Perhaps you could start a science thread there to post your facts in and then ask questions here relating to the wisdom you have imparted there.

We have tidbits of info given from time to time about the answers to the questions, but not discussions and lectures.

I suggest anything further we have to say on this topic be carried elsewhere on the forum and return this thread to it's game status!

[Plethora]

Well you make a good point there Dobber, and I agree. So let the questions start anew :hello:

[Dobber]

@Plethora, thanks! I am honored to have shared the platform with you! :bowdown:

BTW, I did enjoy the information you brought to light for us!

Would you take the honors of asking the next question?

[NaVatar]

New Question? :scratch: .......Well, I guess I will give you one then.

What is the name for the new Elder Scrolls game from Betheseda?
A) TES: Arena.
B) TES: Hamster Cage.
C) TES: Gates of Heaven.
D) TES: Oblivion.
E) TES: Incredible graphics and awesome non-scripted NPC game.
F) TES: Swedish Vodka.
G) TES: Morrowind.
H) TES: Daggerfall.

(ps: TES means The Elder Scrolls)

[NaVatar]

It's not that hard, you know :rolleyes:

[hawk_knight]

i think it was

D) TES: Oblivion

[NaVatar]

Right! It's you're turn hawk_knight :go:

[hawk_knight]

who is the beginner of heinekenBeer

a. rudolf einstein
b. Gerard Adriaan
c. robert van heertum
d. ronald veerkamp
e. albert koeman

[Xuca]

c -

[hawk_knight]

no it is not c still 4 answers to go

[hawk_knight]

come on guys the question isnt that hard to answer is it :biggrin: :wink:

[Xuca]

24h passed, so I have enother try

b. Gerard Adriaan