No. Back to the laser. There was no any previous device that was somehow similar to the laser at all. There existed separate knowledge of different things that works in laser, but nobody even predicted the properties of laser beams.

This is patently false. The propagation and amplification of waves in a medium was well known with water and sound a hundred or two years before the laser was theorized (if we want to give Einstein the credit, more than 100 years ago.) The technology and tools to use this same theory on light simply had not been developed yet. Lasers do not use some revolutionary or novel physical process, rather an evolution of already known physical process into a new medium. It was not anything like you say, that lasers just sprung up from nowhere.

Out of curiosity, why do you choose the 1970's? It appears to me you could say 1950s for your main focal points... both lasers and semiconductors were being developed by then, what came in the 1970's?

(Also, btw, I would posit that quantum computers, if they ever become practical, will be the next "breakthrough" equivalent to semi-conductors. There is controversy about them and they are clearly only in a development stage, but so was laser technology in the 50's...)

Also, as a generalized answer to your questions, we are entering a collapse stage of society right now, new breakthroughs generally occur after collapses, not at the beginning.

No. Back to the laser. There was no any previous device that was somehow similar to the laser at all. There existed separate knowledge of different things that works in laser, but nobody even predicted the properties of laser beams.

This is patently false. The propagation and amplification of waves in a medium was well known with water and sound a hundred or two years before the laser was theorized (if we want to give Einstein the credit, more than 100 years ago.) The technology and tools to use this same theory on light simply had not been developed yet. Lasers do not use some revolutionary or novel physical process, rather an evolution of already known physical process into a new medium. It was not anything like you say, that lasers just sprung up from nowhere.

Out of curiosity, why do you choose the 1970's? It appears to me you could say 1950s for your main focal points... both lasers and semiconductors were being developed by then, what came in the 1970's?

(Also, btw, I would posit that quantum computers, if they ever become practical, will be the next "breakthrough" equivalent to semi-conductors. There is controversy about them and they are clearly only in a development stage, but so was laser technology in the 50's...)