München 2019 – scientific programme

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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik

GP 5: Instruments as tools and subjects of research

GP 5.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 10:45–11:30, HS 9

A solution to a number of problems: On the development of the laser as a tool for and a subject of physical research — •Johannes-Geert Hagmann — Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany

The first laser came into existence in the year 1960. At the time, a popular quote within the community of inventors coined the new light source as "a solution looking for a problem", a phrase frequently repeated and cited up to a level achieving perpetuity. 60 years of development onwards, laser light has reached a distribution over an extremely wide area of scientific and technological applications, creating a sharp antipode to its initially ascribed assessment. Is the laser a tool for physics of comparable scientific agency to say the microscope or telescope in earlier centuries? The the impact of the laser on the development of science and technology has been recognized by a number of historians from a variety of perspectives, including military, technological and economic viewpoints. In this talk, we aim to trace the historical development and the distinction of the use of the laser as a research technology / instrumentation and laser light as a subject of scientific research. We discuss consequences both for the context of the formation of new disciplines and their representation in museum collections.