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Charles Townes
(28 Jul 1915 - 27 Jan 2015)
American physicist who invented the maser and laser, for which he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physics.
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Science Quotes by Charles Townes (2 quotes)
It’s almost a sort of fairy story tale, just what a novelist would write about a discovery.
[Describing how the original idea on the principle of the maser came to him.]
[Describing how the original idea on the principle of the maser came to him.]
— Charles Townes
Interview (2 Feb 1991), 'Creating the Light Fantastic', Academy of Achievement web site.
When God said “Let there be light” he surely must have meant perfectly coherent light.
[co-author with Willis Lamb, Wolfgang Schleich and Marlan Scully]
[co-author with Willis Lamb, Wolfgang Schleich and Marlan Scully]
— Charles Townes
Article, 'Laser Physics: Quantum Controversy in Action', in Benjamin Bederson (ed.) More Things in Heaven and Earth: a Celebration of Physics at the Millennium (1999), 443.
Quotes by others about Charles Townes (1)
Scientists come in two varieties, hedgehogs and foxes. I borrow this terminology from Isaiah Berlin (1953), who borrowed it from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus. Archilochus told us that foxes know many tricks, hedgehogs only one. Foxes are broad, hedgehogs are deep. Foxes are interested in everything and move easily from one problem to another. Hedgehogs are only interested in a few problems that they consider fundamental, and stick with the same problems for years or decades. Most of the great discoveries are made by hedgehogs, most of the little discoveries by foxes. Science needs both hedgehogs and foxes for its healthy growth, hedgehogs to dig deep into the nature of things, foxes to explore the complicated details of our marvelous universe. Albert Einstein and Edwin Hubble were hedgehogs. Charley Townes, who invented the laser, and Enrico Fermi, who built the first nuclear reactor in Chicago, were foxes.
In 'The Future of Biotechnology', A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (2007), 1.
See also:
- 28 Jul - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Townes's birth.
- Making Waves, by Charles H. Townes. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
