Gould, Gordon (1920- )

US physicist, inventor, and manufacturer. While working at Columbia with Charles Townes, among others, he contributed to the development of the laser. Gould would claim greater credit for the laser than others have been willing to grant him, but he was named inventor of the year (1978) by the Patent Office Society for his laser amplifier, and he continues to hold patents on many of the laser devices used for industrial and medical applications. In 1974 he founded Optelecom Inc., which specializes in optical communications; he retired from that firm in 1985.

Gould was born in New York City. After gaining his BSc from Union College, New York, in 1941, he did graduate work in physics at Yale University, leaving to work on the atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project during World War II (1943-45). In the post-war years he worked for various private engineering firms while teaching at City College of New York (1947-54), Columbia University (1954-57), Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1967-74).