The idea of a LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) was first contemplated by Albert Einstein when he proposed the theory of stimulated light emission in 1917. It wasn't until more than 40 years later, in 1958, that work by Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow at Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) in New Jersey on the MASER (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) led to Theodore Maiman, at Hughes Research Laboratories in California, building the first ruby Laser in 1960. Maiman's creation was met with an underwhelming response and was described as a solution looking for a problem. Today, on the laser's fiftieth birthday, physicists assert that the discovery's usefulness has much further to go, despite already underpinning some of the last half century's most disruptive technologies (not least, the optical fibers that make today's high speed internet possible).