Townes, Charles Hard
Townes, Charles Hard (1915- ), a United States physicist. He developed the maser, a device for amplifying microwaves; and did research on microwave spectroscopy, relativity, radio astronomy, and atomic clocks. He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics for his theoretical work in quantum electronics, work that led not only to the maser but also to the laser. Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and received a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1939. He taught physics at Columbia University and was associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the faculty of the University of California in 1967.