Who first called lasers "a solution in search of a problem"?

March 9, 2010 9:00 PM

Who first called lasers "a solution in search of a problem"?

It was supposedly said, not long after lasers were invented, that they were "a solution in search of a problem".

But I can't find any attribution for this quote. Does anybody know who first said it?

posted by madcaptenor to technology (7 answers total)

Dr. Theodore H. Mainan, the researcher who first constructed the optical laser in 1960.
posted by darkstar at 9:11 PM on March 9, 2010

You know, now that I've said that, I'm not sure I can back it up with a reference, other than this one.

So I'd hold that attribution tenuously until I could confirm it. It may well be that there is no record of the first person to so reference the laser, but that it became a meme that caught on until it was just widely reported.
posted by darkstar at 9:17 PM on March 9, 2010

On the broader idea of solutions in search of a problem, the origin of this as a "thing" is likely the Garbage Can Model of organizational decision-making. So if you're interest is in the phenomena of solutions in search of problems rather than in lasers per se, you might want to check that out.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:24 PM on March 9, 2010

I don't find a cite for that quotation in the linked Wikipedia page, darkstar. And elsewhere I see statements like "in 1964 fans of lasers were describing them as 'a solution in search of a problem'". I suspect that a good place to start would be to track down John Caroll's 1964 article in Electronics Magazine, "The Story of Lasers".

Or ask the guy who maintains this page.

On preview: cheers, darkstar!

This is frustrating to me because I remember reading that very quote in that context but the book, if I still have it, is deep within a box stacked among a bunch of other boxes in the back of the garage, and thus might as well be on Mars.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:26 PM on March 9, 2010

It looks to me like the person who coined the phrase was likely Laser Pioneer Charles H. Townes - he is quoted attributing the sentiment to unnamed colleagues (see first items under reviews, here, and slightly differently constructed here (8 paragraphs into the main body of the article).

It's possible that someone specific made that exact remark to Townes and he lumped it in with similar sentiments and whoever coined the phrase was lost - it's also possible that he came up with the particular expression to describe various objections about what the laser was supposed to be good for. I suppose it is also possible that he picked up the quote somewhere else (like some sort of press) and adopted it as part of his story - but if had been said by someone known and notable you'd think that he would attribute it to the person rather than just "people" as he does in those two links. I strongly suspect the widespread reporting of that phrasing comes from the stories Townes relates about the early days of lasers. I couldn't find any support for darkstar's theory.
posted by nanojath at 9:29 PM on March 9, 2010

Arrgh, I came across this in Google Books, one of those "snippet" search results you can't directly look at:

Lasers have been described in glowing terms as well as in disparaging terms, and been called "a solution in search of a problem" by T. H. Maiman, the scientist who first observed...

Here's the snippet image, it's in an article called "U.S. Army Role in Laser Development - Future Potential Discussed" by Charles S. Porter in a publication that Google Books is just identifying as Army Research and Development, Volume 5, 1964.
posted by XMLicious at 1:38 AM on March 10, 2010

Okay, the wording seems to be "a solution looking for a problem".

A 2004 source They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine by Harold Evans attributes it to Mainan again - p. 11:

Theodore Maiman, having invented the first working laser on May 16, 1960, described it as "a solution looking for a problem" because so few appreciated its manifold possibilities; he ended up founding his own companies. He was first an inventor and then an innovator.

But here's what seems to be the more common attribution - to Irnee D'Haenens, one of Mainan's assistants; from Beam: The Race to Make the Laser by Jeff Hecht, 2005, p. 9:

As Irnee D'Haenens pondered the ruby laser that he had helped create, he told Maiman that the laser was "a solution looking for a problem".

posted by XMLicious at 2:07 AM on March 10, 2010