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February 25, 2000
Nobel Prize Winner to Deliver Annual Physics Department Lecture
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Nobel Prize winner Charles H. Townes, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, will speak on "The Sociology of Science Illustrated by the Laser" in the annual Donald Ross Hamilton Lecture in physics March 2.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is geared to everyone with an interest in science.
Townes holds the original patent for the maser, the predecessor of the laser; and with Arthur Schawlow, the original laser patent. He received the Nobel Prize in 1964 for his work in quantum electronics.
A frequent government advisor, Townes served as a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee from 1965-1969 and was chairman of the technical advisory committee for the Apollo Program. More recently, he has headed committees on strategic weapons and has helped shape advice given by the Papal Academy to the Pope on issues of peace and arms control.
Townes received his Ph.D. degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology. He has been a professor at Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, where he has pursued new interests in astrophysics. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Townes received the 1982 National Medal of Science and numerous other awards.
The Donald Ross Hamilton Lecture honors the late Donald Hamilton, a Princeton University physicist and dean of the Graduate School.
Townes will deliver his lecture Thursday, March 2 at 8 p.m. in Jadwin Hall’s A-10 Auditorium.