The word laser now has a strong emotional impact eonjuring up images of I space-battles and high-tech surgery. There was a time when this strange acronym, as yet unloved by science-fiction writers, conjured up nothing at all to a general audi-ence. What is more, scientists thought of the laser as nothing more than a curiosity brought forth by optical physicists and engineers, fascinating perhaps, but little more. It was termed, admittedly by the unkind, 'a solution in search of a problem'.
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