Celebrating 50 Years of the Laser

In 1960 Ted Maiman fired the world's first laser, a very low-powered device by today's standards that was dubbed a "death-ray" by some and a "solution looking for a problem" by others. Today the laser touches our lives in countless ways - from the supermarket scanner to DVD players, from cosmetic surgery to state-of-the-art medical advances, from connecting people through the Internet to keeping our communities secure - lasers are everywhere in today's world. This film looks at how lasers impact our lives today and into the future through comments from a collection of laser pioneers and the researchers who are advancing the technology.

The video is a production of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, as part of its Advancing the Laser celebration.