Townes, Charles H.
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Charles Hard Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina, on 28 July 1915. He attended the Greenville public schools and then Furman University from which he received the Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and the Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern Languages. He was graduated summa cum laude in 1935. A year later he completed work for the Master of Arts degree in Physics at Duke University. He then entered graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, where he received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1939.
Townes was a member of the technical staff of the Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1939 to 1947. He worked extensively during World War II on the design of radar bombing systems. From this he turned to the field of the microwave spectroscope which he foresaw both as a powerful new tool for the study of the structure of atoms and molecules and as a potential new basis for controlling electromagnetic waves.
He was appointed to the faculty of Columbia University in 1948. He continued research in microwave physics and in 1951 be conceived the idea of the maser. In early 1954, the first amplification and generation of electromagnetic waves by stimulated emission were obtained. Townes and his students coined the word "maser" for this device, which is an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.
In 1958, Townes and his brother-in-law, A. L. Schawlow, now of Stanford University, showed theoretically that masers could be made to operate in the optical and infrared region. This work resulted in their joint patent on optical and infrared masers, or lasers (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).
In 1964, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded jointly to Townes and to the Russian scientific team Aleksandr M. Prokhorov and Nikolai G. Basov of the Lebedev Institute for Physics for their "fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle". The two Russian scientists had independently conceived the idea of a maser broadly similar to the ammonia beam device shortly after Townes' initial work.
Having joined the faculty at Columbia University as Associate Professor of Physics in 1948, Townes was appointed Professor in 1950. He served as Executive Director of the Columbia Radiation Laboratory from 1950 to 1952 and was Chairman of the Physics Department from 1952 to 1955.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Lecturer during 1955 and1956, first at the University of Paris and then at the University of Tokyo. He also taught during summer sessions at the University of Michigan and at the Enrico Fermi International School of Physics in Italy, and in 1963 was the Scott Lecturer at the University of Cambridge in England.
From 1959 to 1961, he was on leave of absence from Columbia University to serve as Vice President and Director of Research of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, D.C.
In 1961, Townes was appointed Provost and Professor of Physics at M.I.T. In 1966, he became Institute Professor at M.I.T., and later in the same year resigned from the position of Provost in order to return to more intensive research.
Townes has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the U.S. Air Force and as Chairman of the Strategic Weapons Panel of the Department of Defense. He is presently Chairman of the Science and Technology Advisory Committee for Manned Space Flight of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and is a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee. Townes has served the American Physical Society in various capacities and is currently its Vice President. He is also a Trustee of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the RAND Corporation. Townes' scientific writings have been published in many technical journals.
Townes' honors and awards include the Research Corporation Annual Award; the IRE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Prize; the Comstock Award, National Academy of Sciences; the Stuart Ballantine Medal, Franklin Institute; Exceptional Service Award, U. S. Air Force; the Rumford Premium, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the AIEE David Sarnoff Award; the John J. Carty Medal, National Academy of Sciences; the Thomas Young Medal and Prize, the Institute of Physics and the Physical Society (England); the John Scott Award, City of Philadelphia; the Nobel Prize for Physics; and the Joseph Priestley Award of Dickinson College.He received the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1967 "For his significant contributions in the field of quantum electronics which have led to the maser and the laser."
He has received honorary degrees from Furman University (D.Litt.)Clemson College (Sc.D.); Wesleyan University (Sc.D.); Columbia University (Sc.D.); Swarthmore College (Sc.D.); Polytechnic Institute of Milan (Italy) (Dott. Ing.); Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Sc.D.); Amherst College (Sc.D.); New England College (LL.D.); University of Notre Dame (LL.D.); University of South Carolina (LL.D.); Augustana College (L.H.D.); Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) (Ph.D.); Gustavus Adolphus College (Sc.D.); and Duke University (Sc.D.).
Townes is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is a member of the Societe Francaise de Physique, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Physical Society of Japan, the American Astronomical Society, and the Instrument Society of America.
Townes was married in 1941 to the former Frances H. Brown, of Berlin, New Hampshire. They live in Cambridge, Massachusetts with their four daughters, Linda, Ellen, Carla and Holly.
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