Happy Deepavali: let’s celebrate (laser) light! Did you know there is a connection b/w Baramati, Pune city & the first-ever CO2 lasers? Kumar Patel, the inventor of one of the most powerful lasers, was born in Baramati & did his BE at the College of Engineering, Pune!
Chandra Kumar Naranbhai Patel had an illustrious career. From Pune, he moved to Stanford University for his PhD and then worked at Bell Labs, where he created his CO2 laser. See him describe the invention:
In Nov 1964 (around the time of the Diwali festival :)), he published his invention: https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.136.A1187
Wikipedia has a good profile of his work, including a video :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Kumar_N._Patel
Kumar Patel went on to win many laurels, including US President’s National Medal of Science. https://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/recip_details.jsp?recip_id=270
Kumar was a rare engineering scientist who also served as the president of the American Physical Society in 1995.
https://www.aps.org/about/governance/presidents.cfm
One of the reasons to celebrate Diwali is the move from darkness(ignorance) to light(knowledge). I hope humanity moves toward peace, knowledge and harmony with nature guided by compassion and science. Baramati-born Kumar Patel has shown us one of the ways.
Kannada – ನಿಮಗೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ದೀಪಾವಳಿಯ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು
Marathi – तुम्हा सर्वांना दीपावलीच्या हार्दिक शुभेच्छा
Sanskrit – सर्वेभ्यः दीपावली शुभकामना
Hindi – आप सभी को दीपावली की शुभकामनाएँ
I wish you all a happy Deepavali.
VISMAYA - History & Philosophy of Science 