Charles Hard Townes was born in Greenville years 1915, known as the inventor of the laser. Run the undergraduate education at Furman University, a Masters of education at Duke University, and his PhD at the California Institute of Technology at the age of 24 years. His research in radar systems during World War II prompted him to examine the laser. Taught at various universities including Columbia University, MIT and the University of California at Berkeley. Actively involved in a variety of institutions and organizations of Government Science Advisor. Received various awards including the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 of his contributions in fundamental quantum electronic research leading to the development of laser and maser. Dr. Charles Hard Townes died on 25 January 2015.
Charles Hard Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina on July 28, 1915, the son of Henry Keith Townes, an advocate, and Ellen (Hard) Townes. He entered the Greenville public schools and Furman University in Greenville, where he completed his Bachelor of science and Bachelor of Arts physics field of Modern languages. Graduated with summa honors in 1935 at the age of 19 years. Physics has been captivated since first grade Townes on the second year of his studies because “a beautiful Logical Structure” of physics. Townes was also interested in natural history while at Furman, served as curator at the museum, and during the summer worked as a collector for Furman biology camp. In addition, he was busy with other activities like swimming, teams are members of the newspaper group’s campus and football.
Townes completed the S2 Art Master of physics at Duke University in 1936, and then entered graduate school at the California Institute of Technology received a PhD place Townes glass in 1939 with a thesis on isotope separation and round nuclear.
Members of the technical staff of Bell Telephone laboratories from 1933 to 1947, Dr. Townes worked intensively during World War II in designing radar bombing system and has a number of patents related to the technology. From here it works for focus change Towner applied technology research of microwave spektoskopi to war, which he had foretold will be new technologies to study the structure of atoms and molecules and new grounds to control waves the electromagnetic potential.
At Columbia University, where he was appointed lecturer in 1948, Dr. Townes continued research in microwave physics, particularly the study of the interaction between microwaves and molecules, and using microwave Spectra to study the structure of the molecule, atom and nucleus. In 1951, Dr. Townes believes the idea of the maser, and a few months later he and his partners started working on tools to use ammonia gas as the active medium. In early 1954, the strengthening and the first electromagnet wave generation via emission stimulation obtained by Dr. Townes and his students named the Prod “maser” which is an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. In 1958, Dr. Townes and his brother-in-law, Dr. S. of Schawlow, in some time a professor at Stanford University, showed theoretically that masers could be used to run the optical and infrared region and proposed that can done on a specific system. This resulted in work writing with them in the optical and infrared masers or lasers (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Other studies have been done in the field of nonlinear optics, radio astronomy and Infrared Astronomy. He and his assistants detected the first complex molecules in space stars and first measured the mass of the black hole at the center of our galaxy.
After joining as Associate Professor (Associate Professor) 1948 year of physics at Columbia University, Dr. Townes was appointed Professor in 1950. He served as Executive Director of the Columbia radiation laboratory from year 1950 until 1952 and Chairman of the Department of Physics from 1952 until 1955.
Since the year 1959 to 1961, he was on leave from Columbia University to serve as Vice President and head of Research of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington D.C., a non-profit organization that provides advice to the Government of the United States and is run by eleven campuses.
In 1961, Dr. Townes was appointed Dean and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As Dean he was Rector of shared responsibility in guiding education and research campus in General. In 1966, he became professor of the institute at MIT and later in the same year resigned from the post of the Dean with the intention to return to intensive research, particularly in the University of California in 1967. In this position Dr. Townes was instrumental in teaching, research and other activities on campus, though he himself is located on the campus of Berkeley.
Figure 1 Dr. Charles s. Town (courtesy of http://www.nobelprize.org)During 1955 and 1956, Townes was a member of the Guggenheim and Fullbright teaching, first at the University of Paris and later at the University of Tokyo. DEA is a national lecturer for Sigma Xi and also taught during the summer session at the Universiy of Michigan and at the international school of physics Enrico Fermi, Italy served as director of coherent light during the season in 1963. In the fall of 1963 she was teacher of Scott lectures at the University of Toronto. In 2002-2003 he was the teacher of Karl Schwarzschild in Germany and lecturer and Schroedinger Birla in India.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Dr. Townes also received the Templeton Prize, in its contribution to the understanding of religion, and a number of other awards to about 27 awards from various campus.
Dr. Townes has served in a number of scientific committees of the advisory agency of the Government and has been active in several professional community. Includes members, and Vice Chairman of the President’s Science Advisory Committee of the United States, the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the human to the moon landing, and the first Chairman of the Committee for the Defense Department in the MX missile. He also served as the Board of General Motors company and Perkins Elmer.
Dr. Townes and his wife married in 1941 lived in 1988 San Antonio Avenue, Berkeley, California. They have four daughters, Linda Rosenwein, Ellen Anderson, Carla Kessler and Holly Townes. Dr. Charles Hard Townes died on 27 January 2015.
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- http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1964/townes-bio.html
