Background
Townes was born on July 28, 1915, in Greenville, South Carolina. He was the son of Henry Keith Townes (1876–1958), an attorney, and Ellen Sumter Townes (née Hard; 1881–1980).
He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics during 1964 with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov.
He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics during 1964 with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195153766/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DZX5VPI/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1563963345/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009NNWVRU/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/605423823X/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000CKQ6K/?tag=2022091-20
Townes was born on July 28, 1915, in Greenville, South Carolina. He was the son of Henry Keith Townes (1876–1958), an attorney, and Ellen Sumter Townes (née Hard; 1881–1980).
As a youth he was interested in the biological and natural sciences. He was a gifted scholar who skipped the seventh grade.
Townes entered Furman University in his hometown at age 16 and became interested in physics. He received two degrees from Furman-a Bachelor of Arts in modern languages and a Bachelor of Science in physics.
Charles then went to Duke University, from which he received a Master's degree in physics in 1937. He wrote his masters thesis on van der Graaf generators and continued his studies of French, Italian, and Russian. He completed his education at the California Institute of Technology, where he researched the spin of the carbon-13 nucleus and was awarded a Ph. D. in physics in 1939.
While living in New York City, he also took classes at the Julliard School of Music and enjoyed the cultural attractions of the city.
In 2008, on May 24, Townes received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Redlands.
In 2011, on May 14, Townes received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Texas A&M University.
The next eight years were spent at Bell Telephone Laboratories, where Townes worked as a researcher. During World War II he did extensive work on radar bombing and systems design, as well as some of the early work in radio astronomy. After the war he made critical contributions in the development of high-resolution spectroscopy of gasses in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. He continued this work when he joined the Columbia University faculty in 1948.
The arrival of the radar in World War II gave rise to extensive use of electronic devices in scientific research. The area that interested Townes the most was the use of microwaves (low frequency radiation) to investigate the structure of matter. To carry out this sort of investigation effectively, oscillators that could produce very short wavelength radiation were needed. But by the late 1940s it had become clear that it would never be possible to build an ordinary oscillator that would be able to generate radiation of wavelength less than one millimeter.
Townes made use of the phenomenon of stimulated emission in his first attempt to produce an oscillator that would suit his purpose. This phenomenon, which had been known to physicists since at least 1917 when Albert Einstein showed its existence, is one through which atoms under the influence of an applied electromagnetic field emit photons. It was in 1951 that Townes had the breakthrough idea for his maser and outlined the plans on the back of an envelope while waiting for a restaurant to open. Townes reasoned that to be able to amplify very short wavelength radiation, action on the molecular scale would be required. He conceived of a way that an ensemble of molecules would be able, through stimulated emission, to produce a self-excited oscillator that could amplify signals. The molecules had to be in what is known as an excited state - namely, they had to contain a large amount of energy; they also had to be unstable. Electromagnetic waves would stimulate the molecules to release their extra energy at the same frequency and phase as the stimulating electromagnetic energy. If the right number of molecules were present, this energy would convert into electromagnetic energy very quickly, and coherent (that is, in phase) amplification would become possible.
Townes called this device a "maser" - an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation - and he built the first one in 1954 with H. J. Zeiger and James P. Gordon at Columbia University. This maser operated on ammonia gas. The gas is collimated by a small hole into a vacuum, where it acts like a beam of molecules. These molecules are in two energy states; therefore, depending on their energy, the molecules get deflected in different directions by an applied electromagnetic field. The molecules with the higher energy get deflected into a chamber known as a resonant cavity. If the number of molecules that gets deflected into the cavity is high enough, then amplification occurs. Because of the sharpness and invariance of the interactions in the ammonia beam and the accuracy with which they can be measured, this particular type of maser functions extremely well as a standard of time or of frequency.
With the collaboration of A. L. Schawlow, Townes described the conditions necessary for the operation of masers in different wavelength regions - namely, the infrared, visible, and ultraviolet portions of the spectrum. Such devices were known as optical masers, and the first one was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman.
Townes' development of the maser proved to be critical in modern experimental research. Maser amplifiers have a very high signal-to-noise ratio. They come extremely close to amplifying a single photon of radiation, since they approach the maximum accuracy allowed by the uncertainty principle in measuring the phase and the energy of a given particle. (The uncertainty principle sets a limit on how accurately the energy and the phase of a particle can be measured simultaneously.) Masers are thus extremely useful in experiments performed on a quantum level. In addition, they are useful in long-distance radar and microwave communications and in the reception and detection of weaker signals in radio astronomy.
While working on the maser in 1957, Townes and physicist Arthur L. Schawlow were both looking for ways to produce extremely concentrated beams of light. At the time, lasers were thought to have possible pure scientific uses. Townes and Schawlow were granted the patents in 1960 on the laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) technology, but they never profited personally. Townes was a consultant for, and Schawlow an employee of Bell Telephone Laboratories.
From 1950 to 1952 Townes was the director of Columbia's Radiation Laboratory. From 1952 to 1955 he was also the chairman of the physics department at Columbia. In 1959 he took a leave of absence to work as vice-president and director of research of the Institute for Defense Analysis in Washington, D.C., where he dealt primarily with issues concerning national defense and foreign policy. In 1961 he became a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Between 1966 and 1970, he was chairman of the NASA Science Advisory Committee for the Apollo lunar landing program. He left MIT in 1966 to become a University Professor of Physics at University of California at Berkeley. He retired from that institution in 1986.
During 2002–2003, Townes served as a Karl Schwarzschild Lecturer in Germany and the Birla Lecturer and Schroedinger Lecturer in India.
Townes died at the age of 99 in Oakland, California, on January 27, 2015.
Charles Townes was a physicist whose work concentrated on the development of high-resolution spectroscopy of gasses in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 for his work leading to the development of the maser and his research and ideas were instrumental in the development of the laser by Theodore Maiman.
He was a religious man and a member of the United Church of Christ. Townes believed that "science and religion quite parallel, much more similar than most people think and that in the long run, they must converge". He wrote in a statement after winning the Templeton Prize during 2005: "Science tries to understand what our universe is like and how it works, including us humans. Religion is aimed at understanding the purpose and meaning of our universe, including our own lives. If the universe has a purpose or meaning, this must be reflected in its structure and functioning, and hence in science. "Townes' opinions concerning science and religion were expounded in his essays "The Convergence of Science and Religion", "Logic and Uncertainties in Science and Religion", and his book Making Waves. Townes felt that the beauty of nature is "obviously God-made" and that God created the universe for humans to emerge and flourish. He prayed every day and ultimately felt that religion is more important than science because it addresses the most important long-range question: the meaning and purpose of our lives. Townes' belief in the convergence of science and religion is based on claimed similarities:
Faith. Townes argued that the scientist has faith much like a religious person does, allowing him/her to work for years for an uncertain result.
Revelation. Townes claimed that many important scientific discoveries, like his invention of the maser/laser, occurred as a "flash" much more akin to religious revelation than interpreting data.
Proof. During this century the mathematician Godel discovered there can be no absolute proof in a scientific sense. Every proof requires a set of assumptions, and there is no way to check if those assumptions are self-consistent because other assumptions would be required.
Uncertainty. Townes believed that we should be open-minded to a better understanding of science and religion in the future. This will require us to modify our theories, but not abandon them. For example, at the start of the 20th century physics was largely deterministic. But when scientists began studying the quantum mechanics they realized that indeterminism and chance play a role in our universe. Both classical physics and quantum mechanics are correct and work well within their own bailiwick, and continue to be taught to students. Similarly, Townes believes growth of religious understanding will modify, but not make us abandon, our classic religious beliefs.
Quotations:
"Science, with its experiments and logic, tries to understand the order or structure of the universe. Religion, with its theological inspiration and reflection, tries to understand the purpose or meaning of the universe. These two are cross-related. Purpose implies structure, and structure ought somehow to be interpretable in terms of purpose."
"The beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam: No, I didn't build it myself, but it's based on an idea of mine."
"When God said "Let there be light" he surely must have meant perfectly coherent light."
"At least this is the way I see it. I am a physicist. I also consider myself a Christian. As I try to understand the nature of our universe in these two modes of thinking, I see many commonalities and crossovers between science and religion. It seems logical that in the long run the two will even converge."
"The development of science is basically a social phenomenon, dependent on hard work and mutual support of many scientists and on the societies in which they live."
"We can't avoid age. However, we can avoid some aging. Continue to do things. Be active. Life is fantastic in the way it adjusts to demands; if you use your muscles and mind, they stay there much longer."
"The late Richard Feynman, a superb physicist, said once as we talked about the laser that the way to tell a great idea is that, when people hear it, they say, 'Gee, I could have thought of that."
"The imposing edifice of science provides a challenging view of what can be achieved by the accumulation of many small efforts in a steady objective and dedicated search for truth."
"In many cases, people who win a Nobel prize, their work slows down after that because of the distractions. Yes, fame is rewarding, but it's a pity if it keeps you from doing the work you are good at."
"It's almost a sort of fairy story tale, just what a novelist would write about a discovery."
"Many have a feeling that somehow intelligence must have been involved in the laws of the universe."
"Much public thinking follows a rut. The same thing is true in science. People get stuck and don't look in other directions."
Townes was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1956.
In 1957 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1976 he was Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS).
In 1983 he was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
In 1994 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Quotes from others about the person
"He was one of the most important experimental physicists of the last century," Reinhard Genzel, a professor of physics at Berkeley, said of Townes. "His strength was his curiosity and his unshakable optimism, based on his deep Christian spirituality."
Townes married Frances H. Brown, an activist for the homeless, during 1941. They lived in Berkeley, California and had four daughters, Linda Rosenwein, Ellen Anderson, Carla Kessler, and Holly Townes.
