Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American Nobel Prize-winning physicist and educator. Townes was 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.

Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of Ellen Hard and Henry Keith Townes, an attorney. He earned his B.S./B.A. at Furman University. Townes completed work for the Master of Arts degree in Physics at Duke University in 1936, and then entered graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, from where he received a Ph.D. degree in 1939.

Career

Townes was appointed Professor in 1950 at Columbia University. He served as Executive Director of the Columbia Radiation Laboratory from 1950 to 1952. He was Chairman of the Physics Department from 1952 to 1955.

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. You're wasting money, Just stop!".

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

In 1953, Townes, James P. Gordon, and H. J. Zeiger built the first ammonia maser at Columbia University in 1953. This device used stimulated emission in a stream of energized ammonia molecules to produce amplification of microwaves at a frequency of about 24.0 gigahertz.

For his creation of the maser, Townes along with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov received the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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

In recent years, Townes served as a Karl Schwarzschild Lecturer in Germany and the Birla Lecturer and Schroedinger Lecturer in India.

Personal life

Townes married his wife Frances H. Brown in 1941. They lived in Berkeley, California. They had four daughters, Linda Rosenwein, Ellen Anderson, Carla Kessler, and Holly Townes.

Townes died at the age of 99 in Berkeley, California on January 27, 2015.

Awards

Townes was 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.[10]
• 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, 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.
• 1983 - appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
• 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 from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Books and publications

Theses

• Townes, Charles (1939). Concentration of the heavy isotope of carbon and measurement of its nuclear spin.

Journal articles

• Gordon, J.; Zeiger, H.; Townes, Charles (1955). "The Maser—New Type of Microwave Amplifier, Frequency Standard, and Spectrometer". Physical Review 99: 1264.
• Shimoda, K.; Wang, T.; Townes, Charles (1956). "Further Aspects of the Theory of the Maser". Physical Review 102: 1308.
• Schawlow, Arthur; Townes, Charles (1958). "Infrared and Optical Masers". Physical Review 112 (6): 1940.

Books

• Townes, Charles (1999). How the Laser Happened: Adventures Of a Scientist. Oxford University Press.
• Townes, Charles; Schawlow, Arthur (1955). Microwave Spectroscopy. McGraw-Hill.
• Townes, Charles (1995). Making Waves. American Institute of Physics Press.