Fifty years ago Sunday, a Hughes Labs researcher named Theodore Maiman changed the world. That day, Maiman became the first person on Earth to build a working laser, something that colleagues at a ...

[Ben Krasnow], builder of amazingly complex and technical devices, is finally starting work on his ruby laser. He’s been collecting parts for this project for the past few years, but only recently has ...

The original “solution looking for a problem,” the laser is now 50 years old. This gallery charts the evolution of a technology that underpins everything from the fibre-optic backbone of the internet ...

The arrival of a lightning bolt is an unmistakable phenomenon: a flash of light illuminates the sky as a buildup of electric charge connects with an object to release 300 million volts of electric ...