"Nobel Prize in Physics" Charles Townes Hand Signed Bio Page Todd Mueller COA

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"Nobel Prize in Physics" Charles Townes Hand Signed Bio Page.
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ES - 8237
Charles Hard Townes
(July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American
physicist
. Townes worked on the theory and application of the
maser
, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in
quantum electronics
associated with both maser and
laser
devices. He shared the 1964
Nobel Prize in Physics
with
Nikolay Basov
and
Alexander Prokhorov
. Townes was an adviser to the United States Government, meeting every US President from Harry Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999). He directed the US government Science and Technology Advisory Committee for the Apollo lunar landing program. After becoming a professor of the University of California at Berkeley in 1967, he began an astrophysical program that produced several important discoveries, for example, the
black hole
at the center of the
Milky Way
galaxy. Townes was religious and believed that science and religion are converging to provide a greater understanding of the nature and purpose of the univer. Of ethnic German as well as a great deal of ethnic Scottish, English, Welsh, Huguenot French and Scotch Irish ancestry, 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). He earned his B.S. in Physics and B.A. in Modern Languages at
Furman University
, where he graduated in 1935. Townes completed work for the
Master of Arts
degree in physics at
Duke University
during 1937, and then began graduate school at the
California Institute of Technology
, from which he received a Ph.D. degree in 1939. During
World War II
, he worked on radar bombing systems at
Bell Labs
. In 1950, Townes was appointed Professor at
Columbia University
. 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. 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").
During 1953, Townes,
James P. Gordon
, and
Herbert J. Zeiger
built the first ammonia maser at
Columbia University
. This device used stimulated emission in a stream of energized
ammonia
molecules to produce amplification of microwaves at a frequency of about 24.0
gigahertz
.
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. Between 1961 and 1967, Townes served as both Provost and Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 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. Between 1966 and 1970, he was chairman of the
NASA
Science Advisory Committee for the
Apollo
lunar landing program. For his creation of the maser, Townes along with
Nikolay Basov
and
Alexander Prokhorov
received the 1964
Nobel Prize in Physics
. Townes also developed the use of masers and lasers for
astronomy
, was part of a team that first discovered complex molecules in space, and determined the mass of the
supermassive black hole
at the centre of the
Milky Way
galaxy.
During 2002–2003, Townes served as a Karl Schwarzschild Lecturer in
Germany
and the Birla Lecturer and Schroedinger Lecturer in
India
.
Townes is one of the 20 American recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics to sign a letter addressed to President
George W. Bush
in May of 2008, urging him to "reverse the damage done to basic science research in the Fiscal Year 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill" by requesting additional emergency funding for the
Department of Energy
’s
Office of Science
, the
National Science Foundation
, and the
National Institute of Standards and Technology
.