biography
| name: |
Townes, Charles H(ard)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1915– )
|
| biography:
| Physicist, born in Greenville, South Carolina, USA. He taught at the California Institute of Technology (1937–9), then moved to Bell Telephone Laboratories (1939–47). While at Columbia University (1948–61), he invented the maser (1953–4), and for the scientific work behind this he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physics (shared with two Russian physicists). With his brother-in-law, Arthur Schawlow, he also laid the basis for the laser. He served as science adviser to both the federal government and private industry, and continued his research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1961–6) and at the University of California, Berkeley (1967), applying maser-laser technology to astrophysics. |
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