Charles Hard Townes
20th-century American physicist
Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American Nobel Prize-winning physicist[1] and educator.
Charles Hard Townes | |
|---|---|
 Townes in 2007 | |
| Born | July 28, 1915 |
| Died | January 27, 2015 (aged 99) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Furman University (B.S. & B.A.) Duke University (M.A.) Caltech (Ph.D.) |
| Known for | Inventing the Maser |
| Awards | Comstock Prize in Physics (1958) Young Medal and Prize (1963) Nobel Prize in Physics (1964) IEEE Medal of Honor (1967) National Medal of Science (1982) Lomonosov Gold Medal (2000) Vannevar Bush Award (2006) SPIE Gold Medal (2010) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | Berkeley Bell Labs Institute for Defense Analyses Columbia MIT University Of Michigan |
| Doctoral advisor | William Smythe |
| Doctoral students | Ali Javan James P. Gordon Robert Boyd Raymond Y. Chiao |
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. In 1982, Townes received the National Medal of Science, presented by President Ronald Reagan. In 1999, he was elected a foreign member of the Academia Europaea.[2]
Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina. Townes died at the age of 99 in Oakland, California, on January 27, 2015.[3]
References
change- ↑ "Charles H. Townes - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. March 2003. Retrieved 2014-07-29.
- ↑ "Charles Townes". Academia Europaea. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019.
- ↑ "Charles H. Townes Dies at 99; He Envisioned the Laser, Bringing It Into Daily Life". The New York Times.com. Retrieved January 29, 2015.
Other websites
change
Media related to Charles Townes at Wikimedia Commons
- Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
- News.harvard.edu Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
- Charles Hard Townes Archived 2006-04-29 at the Wayback Machine
- Amazing Light: Visions of Discovery (Symposium in honor of Charles Townes) Archived 2006-01-18 at the Wayback Machine
- Bright Idea: The First Lasers (history with interview clips) Archived 2012-10-03 at the Wayback Machine
- Infrared Spatial Interferometer Array Archived 2007-12-15 at the Wayback Machine
- Research page Archived 2006-02-07 at the Wayback Machine
- Oral History interview transcript with Charles H. Townes 20 and 21 May 1987, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives Archived 25 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- Dedication Program for the Charles H. Townes Center for Science, Furman University, November 1, 2008 Archived May 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
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