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I came across a reputedly true bit of Cold War spy stuff in a book "Farewell: the greatest spy story of the twentieth century" by Sergei Kostin.
It's about a KGB defector, Colonel Vladmir Vetrov who blew the structure of the KGB to the French. As a result, the US sowed the seeds of a spoof about US development of a Gamma Ray Laser to the Russians. He's mentioned in Wikipedia so it's not just fiction.
The Russians have always had their fair share of clever Physicists but no one seemed to question this as a possible piece of military technology. It cost them a lot of money and effort to try to do what they thought the US had done.
What could be the basis which made them think that Nuclear transitions could be used in a laser type reaction? Even to think that X ray energy photons could be produced from electron transitions seems crazy.
Is there something that I am missing or was I right to smell a rat about the Graser?
It's about a KGB defector, Colonel Vladmir Vetrov who blew the structure of the KGB to the French. As a result, the US sowed the seeds of a spoof about US development of a Gamma Ray Laser to the Russians. He's mentioned in Wikipedia so it's not just fiction.
The Russians have always had their fair share of clever Physicists but no one seemed to question this as a possible piece of military technology. It cost them a lot of money and effort to try to do what they thought the US had done.
What could be the basis which made them think that Nuclear transitions could be used in a laser type reaction? Even to think that X ray energy photons could be produced from electron transitions seems crazy.
Is there something that I am missing or was I right to smell a rat about the Graser?