Do you enjoy watching a laser light display? Thank Charles Hard Townes. Born on 28 July 1915, this student of Physics won the Nobel Prize in 1964 jointly for his work with laser. That is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. The idea of creating a pure beam of short-wavelength, high-frequency light came to him as he sat on a Washington park bench among blooming azalea flowers. It was the spring of 1951. That led him, with James P Gordon, to come up with microwave amplifiers or masers. With a suggestion from his brother-in-law and physicist Arthur Schawlow, he came up with a way to amplify a beam of optical light, instead of microwave energy. The laser. And that is how he changed our lives almost wherever we look and in the way we work in virtually every field. Lasers are very useful in our daily lives. They are used in printers and in barcode scanners at the billing counters of stores. They are now invaluable in medicine since they are used for laser surgery. Laser beams can treat skin problems and cure pain. They are strong enough to be used in industries to cut or weld metal. They are used in pointers that are handy in a classroom or a conference. Even soldiers use lasers to make targets. Telecommunications, enetertainment, printing... almost everywhere you look today, lasers are being used. A professor till his last days at UC Berkeley, Townes died on 27 January 2015 at the age of 99 years. Goodbye, Townes. Thank you for making our lives better. Can you think of any other field you'd like to use laser beams?
