It is easy to extol the virtues of a military school. This is because a military school has a raft of benefits which appeal greatly to the students and even more to their parents. Teens today face all sorts of potentially dangerous activities. Getting involved in drugs can be a deadly pastime. But students attending a military school find the temptation to indulge in a risky lifestyle is removed.

Well we can discuss academic results, extra-curricula activities, leadership, community involvement, future study and careers – and that’s just for starters. Military schools place a huge emphasis on academic excellence. Small class sizes, extra study periods, experienced and talented teachers and constant monitoring and reports to parents almost guarantee a splendid academic outcome. Those who are falling behind are spotted quickly and given whatever extra tuition is required. Military schools offer first class facilities for such programs as sport, outdoor education and the performing arts. Students who have a passion in one or more of these areas have ample time and resources at their disposal.

If your teen has any ability in the leadership field, it will be brought to the fore during their time in a military school. This is what they do. The discipline routines and the drills are of great benefit to all students. The ranking of staff members and the requirements of simple daily living all build self-esteem within the students and gives everyone a chance to lead. Military schools place a high emphasis on civic pride, national duty and community involvement. Students are encouraged to attend church and community groups during weekends. Students are encouraged to help others in the local community thus developing a spirit of friendship and charitable deeds. These attitudes help make each student a better person and will go with them throughout their adult years as well.

Once it was that most military school students went on to take a career in the military. This is no longer the case although many military school graduates do indeed make a career for themselves in the military. And the recruitment officers in the military still look favorably on any young person who has graduated from a military school. Young people in their teens need guidance and encouragement. It is these very characteristics which are prominent in every military school. They do not exist to punish students but to inspire and guide them Students are taught to be independent, to learn how to make decisions and the right ones at that. Parents want their kids to be kept out of harm’s way, to develop as excellent students and as worthwhile citizens. Those qualities are the chief goal of every military school.

In one of this most important publications , Einstein has described the process of stimulated emission of radiation. This means that a photon hitting some atom may not only supply energy to this atom in an absorption process, but also send an already excited atom back to a state with lower energy. In the lattter case, an additional photon is emitted. A crucial aspect is Einstein’s insight that the additional photon should move in the same direction as the incoming photon. We thus have a process of light amplification: we get two photons out of one, or transform some light beam into a more energetic one. Furthermore, Einstein has realized that a net gain of optical power in some ensemble of atoms can occur only if there is a so-called population inversion: the upper energy level must be more strongly populated than the lower one, so that the effect of stimulated emission can exceed the one by absorption of atoms in the lower state. This state is often achieved by “optical pumping” e.g. of a laser crystal – an invention attributed to Alfred Kastler.

For a laser, one more thing is required: a “resonator”, in which a light beam can circulate, and an amplifying medium can at least compensate for the power losses in each round trip. This principle was first demonstrated with microwaves, and by the ground-breaking work of Schawlow, Townes and Maiman around 1960 it could also be applied to light.

As the work between 1917 and 1960 has certainly brought more than only the clarification of some minor details, it would be rather far-fetched to call Einstein the inventor of the laser. However, he has indeed realized the most important physical basis of the laser – the process of stimulated emission. This, by the way, was done not by observing physical phenomena, but via theoretical reasoning. After that, there was still a far way to the laser.

there is a similarity to the story of the nuclear bomb. According to the equation E=mc2, a huge amount of energy should be released when just a few grams of matter are converted to energy. Without doubt, this is a very important finding. Nevertheless, it is still another thing to identify a way to do this conversion. Such a way was found via the discovery of nuclear fission by the team of Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in 1938, and the realization of the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction soon after. In this sense, Einstein is related to the atomic bomb perhaps more via his famous letter to president Roosevelt than by the mentioned equation. And Max Planck could present an equation , but no letter, and is not considered to be the father of the laser, but at most a father of the photon, which was later named so by Gilbert N. Lewis.