Ali Javan (Persian: علی جوان‎‎ - Ali Javān, Azerbaijani: [æli d͡ʒaβɑn]; born December 26, 1926) is an Iranian-American physicist and inventor at MIT. His main contributions to science have been in the fields of quantum physics and spectroscopy. He co-invented the gas laser in 1960, with William R. Bennett. In 2007 Javan was ranked Number 12 on the list of the "Top 100 Living Geniuses".