Quotations by Gordon Gould

6 Found
Displaying 1 through 6

Born: Saturday, July 17, 1920
Died: Friday, September 16, 2005 (85 years old)
Profession: Physicist
Nationality: American

But certainly the laser proved to be what I realized it was going to be. At that moment in my life I was too ignorant in business law to be able to do it right, and if I did it over again probably the same damn thing would happen.
- Gordon Gould
(Keywords: Business, Life, Law, Right)

I would have had my patent long, long ago, and it would have run out long, long ago. I would have made, maybe, $100.000, much less that the patent has brought me now.
- Gordon Gould
(Keywords: Now)

Just think, if I had understood my lawyer and if he and I had communicated properly in January 1958, this whole history would have been entirely different .
- Gordon Gould
(Keywords: History)

That attitude does not exist so much today, but in those days there was a very sharp distinction between basic physics and applied physics. Columbia did not deal with applied physics.
- Gordon Gould
(Keywords: Attitude, Physics, Today)

The real technical problems came because people working on the project didn't really follow my proposal at all, but set out to do other things instead of making a laser.
- Gordon Gould
(Keywords: People, Problems, Project)

There was a second problem that was still not a technical problem... the project became classified. I couldn't work on it after having gone to all that trouble. I was considered a security risk, so I could not get a clearance.
- Gordon Gould
(Keywords: Work, Project, Risk, Security, Trouble)