Technology Quarterly | Lasers
Why lasers are so brilliantly useful
It has failed to live up to its perceived military potential, but the laser’s peaceable applications have been spectacular
THE MCGUFFIN in the 1940 Warner Brothers B-movie “Murder in the Air” was an “Inertia projector”—a new name for a device, the ray gun, already established as a science-fiction staple. As a helpful admiral explains, this particular ray gun “not only makes the United States invincible in war, but in so doing promises to become the greatest force for world peace ever discovered”.
This article appeared in the Technology Quarterly section of the print edition under the headline “Outshining the sun”
From the January 9th 2021 edition
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