Abstract
In 2009, the SETI community celebrated a half-century since the classic paper by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison in Nature, that described how we might look for radio transmissions from extraterrestrial civilizations. It is propitious that the publication of this book in 2010 marks both the 50th anniversary of Frank Drake’s Project Ozma, and the 50th anniversary of the demonstration of the first (ruby) laser by Theodore Maiman. The invention of the laser was based on the maser work by Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes and the simultaneous work of Gordon Gould. During this first half-century of SETI, most observing has been carried out in the radio spectrum, during which time there have been enormous developments in laser technology. Only during the past two decades has the optical approach to SETI, otherwise known as optical SETI, been given the attention it deserves.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ross, M., Kingsley, S. (2011). Optical SETI: Moving Toward the Light. In: Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13196-7_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13196-7_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-13195-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-13196-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)