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Charles Hard Townes

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Charles Hard Townes
Townes in 2007
Born(1915-07-28)July 28, 1915
DiedJanuary 27, 2015(2015-01-27) (aged 99)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materFurman University (B.S. & B.A.)
Duke University (M.A.)
Caltech (Ph.D.)
Known forInventing the Maser
AwardsComstock Prize in Physics (1958)
Young Medal and Prize (1963)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1964)
IEEE Medal of Honor (1967)
National Medal of Science (1982)
Lomonosov Gold Medal (2000)
Vannevar Bush Award (2006)
SPIE Gold Medal (2010)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsBerkeley
Bell Labs
Institute for Defense Analyses
Columbia
MIT
University Of Michigan
Doctoral advisorWilliam Smythe
Doctoral studentsAli Javan
James P. Gordon
Robert Boyd
Raymond Y. Chiao

Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American Nobel Prize-winning physicist[1] and educator.

Townes is known for his work on the theory and application of the maser, on which he got the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics connected with both maser and laser devices.

He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. In 1982, Townes received the National Medal of Science, presented by President Ronald Reagan.

Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina. Townes died at the age of 99 in Oakland, California, on January 27, 2015.[2]

References

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  1. "Charles H. Townes - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. March 2003. Retrieved 2014-07-29.
  2. "Charles H. Townes Dies at 99; He Envisioned the Laser, Bringing It Into Daily Life". The New York Times.com. Retrieved January 29, 2015.

Other websites

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Media related to Charles Townes at Wikimedia Commons