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Gordon Gould

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Gordon Gould was an American physicist who worked out the principles of the laser in a notebook in 1957 and coined the word laser there, but delayed filing a patent application until 1959, after which he spent nearly three decades in litigation before winning key laser patents in the 1970s and 1980s.

Facts
Birth Year
1920 1
Death Year
2005 1
Nationality
American 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

In Field

Source A History of TechnologyCharles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors

Held Differently

The Laser, Inventions

Why this is disputed. Gould's 1957 notebook, later notarized, documents the laser's operating principles and the word "laser" itself three years before Maiman built a working device, but Gould did not file for a patent until 1959 and had to fight for patent recognition for nearly three decades.

Source Technology: A World HistoryDaniel R. Headrick
Sources
1. A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954
Technology: A World History
Daniel R. Headrick, Oxford University Press, 2009
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