Magnet Academy: Theodore Maiman

Theodore Maiman built the world's first operable laser. Ironically, Maiman's first paper announcing this momentous achievement, which many other scientists had been racing to complete themselves, was rejected. Since then, however, lasers have come to be widely employed for many purposes, including surgery, welding, special effects, barcode scanners, fiber optics, teeth whitening and reading CDs and DVDs.