| Charles H. Townes  AKA Charles Hard Townes
Born: 28-Jul-1915
Birthplace: Greenville, SC
Died: 27-Jan-2015
Location of death: Berkeley, CA
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Invention of the maser and laser Microwave physicist Charles H. Townes conceived of the maser (an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) in 1951, and designed and tested the first maser two years later. He said later that the idea of converting molecular vibrations into radiation came to him out of the blue as he was sitting on a bench in a public park.
With his brother-in-law, physicist Arthur L. Schawlow, he began working on the laser (also an acronym, for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) in 1957, and formally proposed that the principles of the maser could be expanded into the optical realm with lasers. In 1960 Townes and Schawlow obtained a patent for the laser and explained their idea in an article in Physics Review, which inspired a reader of the journal, Theodore Maiman, to build the first working laser.
In 1964 Townes won the Nobel Prize for Physics, shared with Nikolay G. Basov and Aleksandr M. Prokhorov of the Soviet Union, who conducted similar work independently. Townes was also known for his work on the Autler-Townes effect, Brillouin scattering, and self-trapping of light. He retired in 1986, but continued to maintain an office at the graduate school in astrophysics at the University of California at Berkeley until his death in 2015. Father: Henry Keith Townes (attorney)
Mother: Ellen Hard Townes
Sister: Aurelia Townes Schawlow (m. Arthur L. Schawlow)
Wife: Frances H. Brown Townes (b. 1916, m. 1941)
Daughter: Linda Townes Rosenwein
Daughter: Ellen Townes Anderson
Daughter: Carla Townes Lumsden
Daughter: Holly Townes
High School: Greenville High School, Greenville, SC (1932)
University: BA Modern Languages, Furman University (1935)
University: BS Physics, Furman University (1935)
University: MA Physics, Duke University (1937)
University: PhD Physics, California Institute of Technology (1939)
Professor: Physics, Columbia University (1947-50)
Administrator: Radiation Laboratory, Columbia University (1950-52)
Professor: Physics, Columbia University (1950-61)
Professor: Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1961-66)
Administrator: Provost, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1961-66)
Professor: Institute Prof. of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1966-67)
Professor: University Professor, University of California at Berkeley (1967-86)
Fellow: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Bell Laboratories Research & Development (1933-47)
Guggenheim Fellowship 1955-56
NAS Cyrus B. Comstock Prize in Physics 1958
Franklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Medal 1959, 1962
Institute for Defense Analyses Vice President, 1959-61
NAS John J. Carty Award 1961
Rumford Prize 1961
Thomas Young Medal of the Optical Society 1963
Nobel Prize for Physics 1964 (with Aleksandr M. Prokhorov, Nikolay G. Basov)
IEEE Medal of Honor 1967
Mees Medal of the Optical Society 1968
National Inventors Hall of Fame 1976
APS Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy 1977
South Carolina Hall of Fame 1978
National Medal of Science 1982
French Legion of Honor 1990
NAE Founders Award 2000
Mikhail Lomonosov Gold Medal 2000
Templeton Prize 2005
Vannevar Bush Award 2006 (with Raj Reddy)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Astronomical Society
American Philosophical Society
American Physical Society
Atlas Economic Research Foundation Templeton Freedom Awards Advisory Council
Federation of American Scientists
IEEE
JASON
National Academy of Engineering 1998
National Academy of Sciences 1956
New York Academy of Sciences
Optical Society of America
Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science Foreign Member
Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Royal Society Foreign Member
Russian Academy of Sciences Foreign Member
Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society
Member of the Board of General Motors
Official Website:
http://www.physics.berkeley.edu/research/faculty/Townes.html
Author of books:
Microwave Spectroscopy (1955, physics; with Arthur L. Schawlow)
Making Waves (1994, memoir)
How the Laser Happened: Adventures of a Scientist (2002, memoir)
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