The light from a lamp spreads out in every direction. It mixes different colors together and scatters across the room. A laser does the opposite. On May 16, 1960, Theodore Maiman created the first working laser using a small ruby crystal and a powerful flash lamp. When he fired the flash lamp, the light entered the crystal and bounced back and forth between two mirrors at each end. Each bounce caused the light to become more organized. The photons -- tiny particles of light -- all lined up, traveling in the same direction at the same wavelength. The result was a beam of pure, focused red light. The word "laser" stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. That sounds complicated, but it describes exactly what happens: light is made stronger (amplified) by causing atoms to release identical photons (stimulated emission). What makes lasers so useful is their precision. A normal flashlight beam spreads to several feet wide over a short distance. A laser beam can travel miles and remain pencil-thin. This property has led to countless uses: barcode scanners at grocery stores, fiber optic cables that carry internet signals, surgical tools that can operate on a single cell, and laser pointers that teachers use in presentations.