Re: Siegman Lasers

In article <1162992122.960404.13390@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"redbelly" <redbelly98@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

alex wrote:
I heard that there might be a new adition coming out. Does anyone know
if this is true or even if he is still alive? It hasn't been updated
for 20 years and I don't want to buy that edition to find a new one
comng out 6 months later.

Thanks ALex

Not only is he alive, he reads and contributes to this very newsgroup.
Look for posts by "AES".

True, I'm still around (for the time being, anyway).

Not true, that a new edition of LASERS is coming out -- not anytime
soon, anyway.

True, there exist "plans" for a new edition -- in fact, an outline for a
whole major update, prepared several years ago, is sitting in a binder
on a bookshelf across the room. But for the minute, and for better or
worse, (a) I'm heavily engaged in a couple of research projects that are
getting all my attention, and (b) I'm just not sure I want to tackle a
project as big as revising a 1300-page book at this stage in my life.
It may happen -- but if it does, it will be more on a 3 to 5 year
timetable than a 6 month one.

Thanks for the interest. I think the current edition is still totally
solid on all the basics -- an "updating" would clean up some loose ends,
but would be done mostly be to tackle topics that have emerged since
1986, such as for example: major advances in ultrashort pulse generation
techniques; emergence of the concept of beam quality and M-squared;
emergence of fiber lasers, leading to much increased importance of laser
amplifiers (as contrasted to oscillators); and so on. Maybe this will
happen on a "modular" basis: the core analysis and physics will stay in
a somewhat slimmer book, available only on paper; all the secondary
stuff will be in related modules in electronic form, available free or
at very low cost on line or on DVD. We'll see what happens.

Thanks again for the inquiry.
.