Re: Direct and Indirect Military Spending

I know of one device where Bell was instrumental, and that was
> centimeter and millimeter RADAR. The British may have invented the > magnetron, but Bell invented the MASER. > That MASER btw spawned the 802.11G wireless system I use. Let's not > forget the earlier development of the transistor, or the later > development of the ruby LASER.

Charles Townes, Columbia university faculty member, invented and built the first man-made maser/laser device of any type (mm-wave ammonia maser oscillator/atomic clock), at Columbia, in 1951-1954.

Nico Bloembergen at Harvard invented the microwave solid-state maser (first one with any potential usefulness in radar) at Harvard in 1956. Bell Labs built first working version that same year, not long after hearing of/seeing (advance?) copy of Bloembergen's initial publication.

First succesful (ruby) laser was invented and operated by Ted Maiman at Hughes Research Labs, Malibu in 1960, pretty much totally independently of (and to the substantial surprise of) the ongoing East Coast and Bell Labs efforts to make a laser.

Second and third lasers (both solid-state) were made shortly thereafter by Sorokin et al at IBM Yorktown. Bell Labs the fourth (but first gas) laser just at the very end of 1960.