Richard Gordon Gould (July 17, 1920 – September 16, 2005) was an American physicist who is sometimes credited with the invention of the laser and the optical amplifier.

[3] His mother encouraged his interest in inventors such as Thomas Edison and gave him a toy Erector set at an early age.

He earned a Bachelor of Science in physics at Union College, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, and a master's degree at Yale University, specializing in optics and spectroscopy.

[5] Between March 1944 and January 1945 he worked on the Manhattan Project but was dismissed due to his activities as a member of the Communist Political Association.

[7] His doctoral supervisor was Nobel laureate Polykarp Kusch, who guided Gould to develop expertise in the then-new optical pumping technique.

Since the sides of the cavity did not need to be reflective, the gain medium could easily be optically pumped to achieve the necessary population inversion.

[11] Gould's notebook was the first written prescription for making a viable laser and, realizing what he had in hand, he took it to a neighborhood store to have his work notarized.

Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes independently discovered the importance of the Fabry–Pérot cavity—about three months later—and called the resulting proposed device an "optical maser".

Due to technical difficulties and perhaps Gould's inability to participate, TRG was beaten in the race to build the first working laser by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories.

While this challenge was being fought in the Patent Office and the courts, further applications were filed on specific laser technologies by Bell Labs, Hughes Research Laboratories, Westinghouse, and others.

[19] In 1967, Gould left TRG and became a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, now New York University Tandon School of Engineering.

[24] Gould was able to buy back his patent rights for a thousand dollars, plus a small fraction of any future profits.

In 1973, Gould left the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn to help found Optelecom, a company in Gaithersburg, Maryland that makes fiberoptic communications equipment.

Also in 1979, Gould and his financial backers founded the company Patlex, to hold the patent rights and handle licensing and enforcement.

[32] Rather than be bankrupted by the damages and the lack of a license to the technology, the board of Control Laser turned ownership of the company over to Patlex in a settlement deal.

Even though Gould had signed away eighty percent of the proceeds to finance his court costs, he made several million dollars.