PHYSICIST

Charles H. Townes

1915 - 2015

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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 S. Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999). Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Charles H. Townes is the 41st most popular physicist (up from 187th in 2019), the 104th most popular biography from United States (up from 674th in 2019) and the 2nd most popular American Physicist.

Charles H. Townes is most famous for his invention of the laser in 1958. He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov for his work on the maser.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Charles H. Townes ranks 41 out of 851. Before him are James Clerk Maxwell, Louis de Broglie, Hendrik Lorentz, Daniel Bernoulli, Lise Meitner, and Charles-Augustin de Coulomb. After him are Pieter Zeeman, William Gilbert, Luigi Galvani, Nevill Francis Mott, David J. Thouless, and Charles Édouard Guillaume.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1915, Charles H. Townes ranks 4. Before him are Édith Piaf, Augusto Pinochet, and Vasily Zaitsev. After him are Frank Sinatra, Roland Barthes, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Quinn, Moshe Dayan, Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., Orson Welles, and Arthur Miller. Among people deceased in 2015, Charles H. Townes ranks 5. Before him are John Forbes Nash Jr., Lee Kuan Yew, B.B. King, and A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. After him are Günter Grass, Lemmy, Christopher Lee, Tomas Tranströmer, Nicholas Winton, Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Demis Roussos.

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Charles H. Townes ranks 104 out of 20,380. Before him are Morgan Freeman (1937), Jack Nicholson (1937), Abraham Maslow (1908), Anthony Fauci (1940), Dustin Hoffman (1937), and Theodore Roosevelt (1858). After him are Bernie Madoff (1938), Richard Stallman (1953), Louis Armstrong (1901), Marvin Gaye (1939), Vince McMahon (1945), and Jim Morrison (1943).

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Among PHYSICISTS In United States

Among physicists born in United States, Charles H. Townes ranks 2. Before him are J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904). After him are Philip Warren Anderson (1923), Richard Feynman (1918), Sheldon Lee Glashow (1932), Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. (1915), Luis Walter Alvarez (1911), Robert Andrews Millikan (1868), Carl David Anderson (1905), Barry Barish (1936), Ben Roy Mottelson (1926), and Percy Williams Bridgman (1882).

American born Physicists

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