James Gordon Dies at 85; Work Paved Way for Laser

Too bad Gordon couldn't have shared the Nobel with Townes and the 2 Russians for his work on the maser/laser.

I was still a young physicist/engineer when the Laser Patent War took place. Gould, backed by an army of lawyers, eventually got some credit for developing the 'laser' and naming it (yeah - like it took a lot of imagination to come up with the term 'Light Amplification...' after Townes and Gordon had been using 'Microwave Amplification...' for years.) But in my mind (and for most of us who remember those days) Townes and Gordon get all the credit because without them there was no laser.