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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
maser
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Other more recent tests involve direct comparison of the time-keeping of atomic clocks or of masers.
▪ Our observations of the maser emission were made from January to June 1992 with the Nobeyana 45-m telescope.
▪ The main maser features may have originated from the slowly rotating disk or from the outflow gas near the galactic nucleus.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
maser

maser \ma"ser\, n.

  1. Same as Mazer.

  2. (Physics) [from Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.] An electronic device producing coherent monochromatic microwave radiation; it produces less noise than other forms of microwave oscillator.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
maser

1955, acronym from "microwave amplification (by) stimulated emission (of) radiation."

Wiktionary
maser

Etymology 1 n. 1 (context physics English) a device for the coherent amplification or generation of electromagnetic radiation (especially of microwave frequency) by the use of excitation energy in resonant atomic or molecular systems 2 (context astronomy English) Any celestial object that generates microwaves using the same method Etymology 2

n. (obsolete spelling of mazer English)

WordNet
maser

n. an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation; an amplifier that works on the same principle as a laser and emits coherent microwave radiation

Wikipedia
Maser

A maser (, an acronym for "microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation") is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, James P. Gordon, and H. J. Zeiger at Columbia University in 1953. Townes, Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical work leading to the maser. Masers are used as the timekeeping device in atomic clocks, and as extremely low-noise microwave amplifiers in radio telescopes and deep space spacecraft communication ground stations.

Contemporary masers can be designed to generate electromagnetic waves at not only microwave frequencies but also radio and infrared frequencies. For this reason Charles Townes suggested replacing "microwave" with the word "molecular" as the first word in the acronym maser.

The laser works by the same principle as the maser, and the maser was the forerunner of the laser, inspiring theoretical work by Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow that led to its invention in 1960. When the coherent optical oscillator was first imagined in 1957, it was originally called the "optical maser." This was ultimately changed to laser for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation." Gordon Gould is credited with creating this acronym in 1957.

Maser (disambiguation)

A maser is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves.

Maser may also refer to:

  • Astrophysical maser, a naturally occurring source of stimulated spectral line emission
  • Mike Maser, a coach for the Miami Dolphins
  • Maser, Veneto, a municipality in Italy
  • Maser (rocket), a sounding rocket launched from Esrange in Sweden
  • Werner Maser, (1922-2007), German historian and author of books about Adolf Hitler including Hitler's Letters and Notes and Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality
Maser (rocket)

Maser is a sounding rocket that is used in the MASER microgravity research rocket programme, which is operated by the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC). The main customer is the European Space Agency ( ESA), and in particular its EMIR and ELIPS programmes.

The launches take place at Esrange in Northern Sweden. The programme offers 6-7 minutes of microgravity and full recovery of the experiment modules with helicopter immediately after flight.

Usage examples of "maser".

The maser beam swept across him and then there was no pain, nor anything else, forever and ever again, amen.

Denice turned slightly, saw the second man wore a hand maser strapped openly at his thigh.

About three-quarters of the way through the negotiations, when all that was left was the finalization of some details, Henson suddenly stopped talking, sat motionless for just a moment, and then abruptly put his maser in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

A wash of flame exploded outward from the spot where David Castanaveras stood, sent a burning wash of superheated air across the room like a maser set at wide dispersion.

The maser was so old she had been afraid it was going to short out in her hand.

Ministry of Population Control workers, most of them imported from other states to help with the catastrophe, found her sometime in the following week, curled up in the doorway of an abandoned building, clutching the maser like a doll while she slept.

The Japanese man moved with unnatural speed for a human, the medbot saw next, twisted and bounced as far away from the patient as the freight elevator would let him get, pulling his maser free in midbounce, firing as he moved.

A hand maser was passed forward to him, and he sat next to the doorway, listening to the distant firefight.

DOD computer that monitored them, and that system was, like Ring, separated not only from the digital telephone networks, but also from any form of radio, laser, or maser communications.

Malko suspiciously like the laser-resistant cloth combat fatigues were made of, with a hand maser tucked into a pocket and an autoshot resting on her right shoulder, took them up to see Carl.

He was flipping the autoshot over to fire to his right when the wash of maser flame struck the hand.

His maser carbine had picked them off one at a time under the horrified eyes of the Nicholls family.

Powel made a frantic lunge for the maser carbine in the saddle holster.

Salkid take a blackhawk maser out of storage, and be ready to eliminate that observation satellite.

Only five of them actually housed communication equipment, the other two covered maser cannon which provided a short-range defence capability.