Charles Townes

CHARLES TOWNES d2015. American physicist. He 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. He was an adviser to the United States Government meeting every US president from Harry S Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999)