Talk about being in the right place at the right time – on Friday, March 12, 2010, I had the privilege and good fortune to be able to attend a conference and birthday party in celebration of one of the greatest physicists of the 20th and 21st centuries – Nicolaas Bloembergen. He’s called Nico, turned 90, has a Nobel Prize, and is really nice. I had the pleasure of chatting with him briefly at “The Nicolaas Bloembergen Nobel Prize Scientific Symposium” sponsored by the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences. Nico is considered one of the fathers of optical science and in particular, lasers. In fact, the two last lectures of the day, entitled “Who (really) Invented the Laser (Part I and II),” presented by Robert A. Myers and Richard Dixon, offered evidence from patent filings that Nico is the true parent of the laser. “By patent law, Nico is the (undeniable) inventor of the laser,” stated Myers, a former student of Bloembergen’s. He clarified that “inventorship of the las