AP News, May 11th, 2007
Theodore H. Maiman
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) _ Theodore H. Maiman, a physicist who built the first working laser in the United States and advocated for its use in medical applications, has died. He was 79.
Maiman died Sunday at a Vancouver hospital from a rare genetic disorder called systemic mastocytosis, said his wife, Kathleen.
Maiman made his laser discovery in 1960, while working for Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, Calif., using a high-power flash lamp and a synthetic ruby crystal. He described his approach as "ridiculously simple," despite worldwide competition to be the first to develop a working laser.
Earlier in 1960, two other scientists were the first to register patents for an optical "maser," but there was no functioning device to support the paper patent. Then Gordon Gould, working for a defense researcher, filed competing patent claims and coined the word "laser" as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.
Maiman is widely credited in encyclopedias and the National Inventors Hall of Fame with being the first to create a working laser.
He worked for nearly the past eight years as an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, helping design the curriculum for a new biophotonics engineering program.
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Gino Pariani
ST. LOUIS (AP) _ Gino Pariani, who played for the United States on the 1950 soccer team that produced one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history, has died. He was 79.
Pariani died Wednesday night after having bone cancer for two years, his family said.
Pariani, the son of Italian immigrants, grew up playing soccer in St. Louis' famed Italian neighborhood, "The Hill" and was part of the mostly amateur team that jolted the soccer world with its 1-0 defeat of powerful England in Brazil.
The story of the 1950 squad was told in the 2005 film, "The Game of Their Lives."
A few days after he married, Pariani boarded a plane for Brazil with his St. Louis teammates. The Americans won on a header by Joe Gaetjens in the 37th minute.
The English team featured the likes of Alf Ramsey, who would go on to become England's 1966 World Cup-winning coach, and Tom Finney. Both were eventually knighted for their soccer exploits.
Pariani, a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame, also played on the U.S. Olympic team in 1948.
