 |
Charlz TaunsAmerican physicist and teacher
Date of Birth: 28.07.1915
Country:  USA |
Content:
Biography of Charles Townes
Charles Hard Townes, an American physicist and professor, is known for his work in the theory and application of the molecular generator (maser), for which he obtained a fundamental patent. He became the author of other works in the field of quantum electronics directly related to the maser and laser. In 1964, Townes shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov.
Early Life and Education
Charles Hard Townes was born on July 28, 1915, in Greenville, South Carolina, as the son of Ellen Hard and lawyer Henry Kit Townes. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in humanities from Furman University. Townes obtained a Master's degree in physics from Duke University in 1936, and then pursued a Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology, which he received in 1939.
Career and Achievements
Townes was appointed as a professor at Columbia University in 1950. He served as the Executive Director of the Radiation Laboratory at the university from 1950 to 1952, and then remained as the Chairman of the Physics Department from 1952 to 1955.
Townes' work on the development of the quantum generator, emitting coherent electromagnetic microwaves, was initially met with doubt by theorists such as Niels Bohr and John von Neumann. However, Townes persisted in his research and was proven right. In 1953, Townes, along with James P. Gordon and H. J. Zeiger, built the first molecular maser using gaseous ammonia at Columbia University. This ammonia maser stimulated the emission of intense ammonia molecules to achieve the propagation of microwaves at around 24.0 gigahertz.
Furthermore, Townes was a pioneer in the use of masers and lasers in astronomy. He was part of a team of scientists that first discovered complex molecules forming in space and determined the mass of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Between 1966 and 1970, Townes served as the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Apollo program at NASA. In his later years, Townes lectured in Germany and India. He passed away on January 27, 2015, at the age of 99, in Oakland, California.
Personal Life and Beliefs
Charles was married to Francis Brown since 1941, and they had four daughters: Linda Rosenwein, Ellen Anderson, Carla Kessler, and Holly Townes.
As a member of the United Church of Christ, Townes believed that "science and religion, often seen as separate spheres, have much more in common than most people think and that in the long run, they must intersect."
