Townes was religious[17] and believed that science and religion are converging to provide a greater understanding of the nature and purpose of the universe.
Townes had German, Scottish, English, Welsh, Huguenot French, and Scotch Irish ancestry,[18] Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of Henry Keith Townes (1876–1958), an attorney, and Ellen Sumter Townes (née Hard; 1881–1980).[19] His brother, Henry Keith Townes Jr., (January 20, 1913 – May 2, 1990), was a renowned entomologist who was a world authority on Ichneumon wasps. Charles earned his B.S. in Physics and B.A. in Modern Languages at Furman University, where he graduated in 1935.[4] Townes completed work for the Master of Arts degree in physics at Duke University in 1937,[20] and then began graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, from which he received a Ph.D. degree in 1939.[21] During World War II, he worked on radar bombing systems at Bell Labs.[3][4]
In 1950, Townes was appointed professor at Columbia University.[4] He served as executive director of the Columbia Radiation Laboratory from 1950 to 1952. He was Chairman of the Physics Department from 1952 to 1955.[4]
In 1951, Townes conceived a new way to create intense, precise beams of coherent radiation, for which he invented the acronym maser (for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). When the same principle was applied to higher frequencies, the term laser was used (the word "light" substituting for the word "microwave").[22]
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., a nonprofit organization, which advised the U.S. government and was operated by eleven universities.[4] Between 1961 and 1967, Townes served as both provost and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[4] Then, during 1967, he was appointed as a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he remained for almost 50 years; his status was as professor emeritus by the time of his death during 2015.[4] Between 1966 and 1970, he was chairman of the NASA Science Advisory Committee for the Apollo lunar landing program.
The Galactic Center of the Milky Way had long puzzled astronomers, and thick dust obscures the view of it in visible light. During the mid to late 1970s, Townes together with Eric Wollman, John Lacy, Thomas Geballe and Fred Baas studied Sagittarius A, the H II region at the Galactic Center, at infrared wavelengths. They observed ionized neon gas swirling around the center at such velocities that the mass at the very center must be approximately equal to that of 3 million suns.[29] Such a large mass in such a small space implied that the central object (the radio source Sagittarius A*) contains a supermassive black hole. Sagittarius A* was one of the first black holes detected; subsequently its mass has been more accurately determined to be 4.3 million solar masses.
Townes's last major technological creation was the Infrared Spatial Interferometer with Walt Fitelson, Ed Wishnow and others. The project combined three mobile infrared detectors aligned by lasers that study the same star. If each telescope is 10 meters from the other, it creates an impression of a 30-meter lens.[30] Observations of Betelgeuse, a red giant in the shoulder of the constellation Orion, found that it is increasing and decreasing in size at the rate of 1% per year, 15% over 15 years. ISI produces extremely high angular and spatial resolution. The technology is also playing an important role in the search for extraterrestrial life in collaborations with Dan WerthimerofSearch for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).[citation needed]
Townes married Frances H. Brown, an activist for the homeless,[31] during 1941. They lived in Berkeley, California and had four daughters, Linda Rosenwein, Ellen Anderson, Carla Kessler, and Holly Townes.[4]
A religious man and a member of the United Church of Christ, Townes believed that "science and religion [are] quite parallel, much more similar than most people think and that in the long run, they must converge".[32] He wrote in a statement after winning the Templeton Prize during 2005: "Science tries to understand what our universe is like and how it works, including us humans. Religion is aimed at understanding the purpose and meaning of our universe, including our own lives. If the universe has a purpose or meaning, this must be reflected in its structure and functioning, and hence in science."[33]
Townes's opinions concerning science and religion were expounded in his essays "The Convergence of Science and Religion", "Logic and Uncertainties in Science and Religion", and his book Making Waves. Townes felt that the beauty of nature is "obviously God-made" and that God created the universe for humans to emerge and flourish. He prayed every day and ultimately felt that religion is more important than science because it addresses the most important long-range question: the meaning and purpose of our lives. Townes's belief in the convergence of science and religion is based on claimed similarities:
Faith. Townes argued that the scientist has faith much like a religious person does, allowing him/her to work for years for an uncertain result.
Revelation. Townes claimed that many important scientific discoveries, like his invention of the maser/laser, occurred as a "flash" much more akin to religious revelation than interpreting data.
Proof. During this century the mathematician Godel discovered there can be no absolute proof in a scientific sense. Every proof requires a set of assumptions, and there is no way to check if those assumptions are self-consistent because other assumptions would be required.
Uncertainty. Townes believed that we should be open-minded to a better understanding of science and religion in the future. This will require us to modify our theories, but not abandon them. For example, at the start of the 20th century physics was largely deterministic. But when scientists began studying the quantum mechanics they realized that indeterminism and chance play a role in our universe. Both classical physics and quantum mechanics are correct and work well within their own bailiwick, and continue to be taught to students. Similarly, Townes believes growth of religious understanding will modify, but not make us abandon, our classic religious beliefs.
Townes had steadily been active at the UCB campus, visiting and working regularly in the physics department or at the Space Sciences Laboratory past his 99th birthday and only a few months before his death.[34] Townes' health began to decline, and he died on route to the hospital in Oakland, California, on January 27, 2015, at the age of 99.[35][36][37] "He was one of the most important experimental physicists of the last century," Reinhard Genzel, a professor of physics at Berkeley, said of Townes. "His strength was his curiosity and his unshakable optimism, based on his deep Christian spirituality."[33]
1979 — He was awarded the Niels Bohr international medal, for contributions to the peaceful use of atomic energy.
1980 — Townes was inducted by his home state into the South Carolina Hall of Science and Technology, and has also been awarded a South Carolina Hall of Science and Technology Citation.
^Chiao, Raymond, ed. (1996). Amazing Light: A Volume Dedicated To Charles Hard Townes On His 80th Birthday. Springer. ISBN978-0-387-94658-0.
^Chiao, Raymond, ed. (2005). Visions of Discovery: New Light on Physics, Cosmology, and Consciousness, A Volume Dedicated to Charles Hard Townes on his 90th Birthday. Cambridge. ISBN978-0-521-88239-2.
^Haynie, Rachel (2014). First, You Explore: The Story of Young Charles Townes (Young Palmetto Books). University of South Carolina Press. ISBN978-1-61117-343-7.
^Hecht, Jeff (2005). Beam: The Race to Make the Laser. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-514210-5.
^Danchi, W. C.; Bester, M.; Degiacomi, C. G.; Greenhill, L. J.; Townes, C. H. (1994). "Characteristics of dust shells around 13 late-type stars". The Astronomical Journal. 107: 1469. Bibcode:1994AJ....107.1469D. doi:10.1086/116960.
Charles Townes Oral History part 1 Childhood, college, career overview, Recorded at IEEE History Center, August 1991, Retrieved May 1, 2015
Charles Townes Oral History part 2 Studies at Caltech and work at Bell Labs on the eve of World War II, Recorded at IEEE History Center, September 1992, Retrieved May 1, 2015
The Learning Project[permanent dead link] Charles Hard Townes, physicist, astronomer, university professor. Interview for The Learning Project: Views of Authentic Learning, June 2005
"The Man, the Myth, the Laser", Distillations Podcast, Science History Institute
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964 Production of Coherent Radiation by Atoms and Molecules
