In 1973, Mani Lal Bhaumik developed the first efficient excimer laser at Northrop Corporate Research Laboratory. Eight years later, on November 27, 1981, Rangaswamy Srinivasan brought leftover Thanksgiving turkey to IBM’s Yorktown Heights lab and shot it with an excimer laser, discovering it could ablate biological tissue with extraordinary precision and no thermal damage. That experiment became the scientific foundation for LASIK eye surgery. Since FDA clearance in 1995, over 40 million Americans have had their vision corrected. Two Indian-born scientists, one laser, two discoveries, one revolution in human sight.
