Charles Hard Townes
| Charles Townes | |
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Townes in 2007
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| Born | Charles Hard Townes July 28, 1915 Greenville, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | January 27, 2015 (aged 99) Oakland, California, U.S. |
| Residence | United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater |
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| Thesis | Concentration of the heavy isotope of carbon and measurement of its nuclear spin (1939) |
| Doctoral advisor | William Smythe |
| Doctoral students | |
| Known for | Lasers |
| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | Frances Brown (m. 1941–2015) (his death) |
Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American physicist and inventor of the maser and laser. 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. Charles was also a key advisor to the United States Government, meeting every US President from Harry Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999). One of the most notable committees he led for the government was the Science and Technology Advisory Committee for the Apollo flights, which were extremely effective at bringing the program to a successful fruition on time and under budget. After joining UC Berkeley in 1967, he began an astrophysical program that produced several important discoveries like the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Townes was deeply religious and believed that science and religion are converging to provide a fuller understanding of the nature and purpose of this universe.
Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of Ellen Sumter Townes (née Hard; 1881-1980) and Henry Keith Townes (1876-1958), an attorney. He earned his B.S. in Physics and B.A. in Modern Languages at Furman University, where he graduated in 1935. Townes completed work for the Master of Arts degree in Physics at Duke University in 1937, and then entered graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, from where he received a Ph.D. degree in 1939. During World War II he worked on radar bombing systems at Bell Labs.
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.
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