50th anniversary of the Laser, Day 2

The series of talks today was quite good. I especially enjoyed the talks given by Drs. Townes and Svelto, although Drs. Zewail and Krausz both gave good talks as well. Dr. Cohen-Tannuodji was speaking about some very interesting things, but he was also speaking quickly and a little above my head, so I'm afraid much of the talk was lost on me.
I can't believe that Dr. Townes is 95. He doesn't look a day over 70, and quite frankly I hope I'm in half as good shape when/if I reach 95. He talked on the history of the maser, the microwave radiation forerunner to the laser. The first day of my Fundamentals of Lasers class at UR also covered this, but hearing it from Dr. Townes was several orders of magnitude more interesting.

Ted Maiman's wife talked about Maiman's contributions, and brought with her Maiman's ruby laser, in the photo below.

The only disappointment was that many of the talks were very "general audience;" with Drs Zewail and Krausz stating and apologizing for as much. I hope the talks tomorrow are a little more detailed. I'm looking forward to Dr. Aspect's talk, although I fear it may be similar to one of the ones he gave at Rochester this past year.




In an unrelated note, GO TEAM USA!