I suppose it’s easy to say, and it may be true, that my role in the development of the laser is perhaps the most important to society. Certainly in terms of applications, and the direct effects on humans, that has been quite important. On the other hand, there are other things which most people don’t know about, and in the scientific area, that I could argue are really quite important, the discoveries there.
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Charles H. Townes
Physicist; Nobel laureate in physics for the invention of the maser and laser
United States · 1915–2015
Science and medicine
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Physicist who conceived the maser at Columbia University in 1951 and shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for the underlying principle. Later worked in radio and infrared astronomy at Berkeley.
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