Scientists make contributions and they work supported by the previous contributions. So the argument "X were the first" doesn't have to do anything to science, but only to populism in politics.
"Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, Nikolay Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov were independently working on the quantum oscillator and solved the problem of continuous-output systems by using more than two energy levels. These gain media could release stimulated emissions between an excited state and a lower excited state, not the ground state, facilitating the maintenance of a population inversion. In 1955, Prokhorov and Basov suggested optical pumping of a multi-level system as a method for obtaining the population inversion, later a main method of laser pumping."
It's really sad what has happened with Russian science and technology under Putin.
One very important factor the article failed to mention is the corrupt, crony capitalist economic system that Putin has cultivated. Big companies are protected by the regime in exchange for pay-offs and political support. That means they don't have to innovate to compete domestically or internationally.
There are some exceptions, but on the whole the amount of tech invention coming out of Russia today is not one-tenth what you would expect out of such a large industrialized nation.
[+] [-] CamperBob2|8 years ago|reply
Fellow by the name of Ted Maiman at Bell Labs might beg to differ.
[+] [-] oscii|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olegious|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser
[+] [-] woodandsteel|8 years ago|reply
One very important factor the article failed to mention is the corrupt, crony capitalist economic system that Putin has cultivated. Big companies are protected by the regime in exchange for pay-offs and political support. That means they don't have to innovate to compete domestically or internationally.
There are some exceptions, but on the whole the amount of tech invention coming out of Russia today is not one-tenth what you would expect out of such a large industrialized nation.