Charles Hard Townes

Charles Hard Townes
Born	(1915-07-28) July 28, 1915 Greenville, South Carolina
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Berkeley Bell Labs Institute for Defense Analyses Columbia MIT University Of Michigan
Alma mater	Furman University (B.S. & B.A.) Duke University (M.A.) Caltech (Ph.D.)
Doctoral advisor	William Smythe
Doctoral students	Ali Javan James P. Gordon Robert Boyd Raymond Y. Chiao
Known for	Inventing the Maser
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (1964) Templeton Prize (2005)

Charles Hard Townes (born July 28, 1915) is an American Nobel Prize-winning physicist and educator. Townes is known for his work on the theory and application of the maser, on which he got the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics connected with both maser and laser devices. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. The Japanese FM Towns computer and game console is named in his honour.

Personal life

Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of Ellen Hard and Henry Keith Townes, an attorney.

Research

Theorists like Niels Bohr and John von Neumann doubted that it was possible to create such a thing as a maser. Nobel laureates Isidor Isaac Rabi and Polykarp Kusch received the budget for their research from the same source as Townes; three months before the first successful experiment they tried to stop him: "Look, you should stop the work you are doing. It isn't going to work. You know it's not going to work, we know it's not going to work, we know it's not going to work. You're wasting money, Just stop!".

Science and religion

A member of the United Church of Christ, Townes considers that "science and religion [are] quite parallel, much more similar than most people think and that in the long run, they must converge".

Awards

Townes (right) receiving the 2006 Vannevar Bush Award

Townes has been widely recognized for his scientific work and leadership.

• 1956 – elected Full Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
• 1957 – elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• 1958 – awarded the Comstock Prize in Physics from the National Academy of Science.
• 1961 – awarded the David Sarnoff Electronics Award given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Rumford Prize awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• 1962 – The John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science given by the National Academy of Science.
• 1962 – Stuart Ballantine Medal given by The Franklin Institute.
• 1963 – Young Medal and Prize, for distinguished research in the field of optics presented by the Institute of physics.
• 1964 – Nobel Prize in Physics with N. G. Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov for contributions to fundamental work in quantum electronics leading to the development of the maser and laser.
• 1979 – He was awarded the Niels Bohr international medal awarded for contributions to the peaceful use of atomic energy.
• 1980 – Townes was inducted by his home state into the South Carolina Hall of Science and Technology, and has also been awarded a South Carolina Hall of Science and Technology Citation.
• 1982 – He received the National Medal of Science, presented by President Ronald Reagan.
• 1994 – elected Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
• 1996 – awarded the Frederic Ives Medal by the OSA
• 1997 - Jansky Lectureship before the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
• 1998 – awarded the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship by the American Astronomical Society.
• 2000 – awarded the Lomonosov Medal by the Russian Academy of Sciences.
• 2003 – awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in Telluride, Colorado.
• 2005 – awarded the Templeton Prize for "Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities."
  • He has also been awarded the LeConte Medallion.
• 2006 – Along with associate Raj Reddy, Townes was awarded the Vannevar Bush Award for Lifetime Contributions and Statesmanship to Science
• 2008 – On May 24 Townes received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Redlands.
• 2010 – SPIE Gold Medal
• 2012 - awarded the Golden Goose Award for government-funded research with unexpected applications.
• 2012 - awarded the Nancy DeLoye Fitzroy and Roland V. Fitzroy Medal

Representation

• Between 1966 and 1970 he was chairman of the NASA Science Advisory Committee for the Apollo lunar landing program.

Bibliography

• M. Bertolotti, History of the Laser, Taylor and Francis, 2004.
• J.L. Bromberg, The Laser in America, 1950–1970, MIT Press, 1991.
• R.Y. Chiao, Amazing Light : A Volume Dedicated To Charles Hard Townes On His 80th Birthday, Springer, 1996.
• J. Hecht, Beam: The Race to Make the Laser, Oxford University Press, 2005.
• J. Hecht, Laser Pioneers, Academic Press, 1991.
• N. Taylor, Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War, Citadel, 2003.
• A.L. Schawlow and C.H. Townes, "Infrared and Optical Masers," Phys. Rev. 112, 1940 (1958).
• C.H. Townes, Making Waves, AIP Press, 1995.
• C.H. Townes, How the Laser Happened: Adventures of a Scientist, Oxford University Press, 2000.
• C.H. Townes and A.L. Schawlow, Microwave Spectroscopy, McGraw-Hill, 1955.
• F. Townes, Misadventures of a Scientist's Wife, Regent Press, 2007.
• (with H.M. Foley & W. Low)"Nuclear Quadrupole Moments and Nuclear Shell Structure," Brookhaven National Laboratory, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (June 23, 1950).
• (with J. Turkevich)"Hyperfine Structure and Exchange Narrowing of Paramagnetic Resonance," Brookhaven National Laboratory, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (1950).
• (with C. Herring & W.D. Knight)"The Effect of Electronic Paramagnetism on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Frequencies in Metals," Columbia University, Bell Labs, Atomic Energy Commission, (September 22, 1950).
• (with K. Shimoda & T.C. Wang)"Research Investigation Directed Toward Extending the Useful Range of the Electromagnetic Spectrum (Special Technical Report): Further Aspects of the Theory of the Maser.," Columbia University, Signal Corps (United States Army), Office of Naval Research, Air Research and Development Command, Atomic Energy Commission, (March 01, 1956).

See also

• List of science and religion scholars

External links

• Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
• http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/06.16/05-laser.html
• Charles Hard Townes
• Amazing Light: Visions of Discovery (Symposium in honor of Charles Townes)
• Bright Idea: The First Lasers (history with interview clips)
• Infrared Spatial Interferometer Array
• Research page
• Oral History interview transcript with Charles H. Townes 20 and 21 May 1987, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Dedication Program for the Charles H. Townes Center for Science, Furman University, November 1, 2008