What's the difference between divine revelation and scientific discovery? Not much, according to Charles Townes, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who believes he may have experienced both over a half-century ago when he first formulated a theory which led to the laser's creation.

An idea so far ahead of time that it's still considered high-tech today, lasers are the basis for everything from fiber optic communications and advanced weapons systems, to compact disc players and bar code scanners.

Illumination came to Townes on a spring day in 1951, while he was sitting on a park bench in Washington, DC. Then a young professor of physics at Columbia University in New York City, he'd been asked to chair a committee of America's brightest scientists, convened by the U.S. Navy in hopes of creating a new, shorter wave radar system.

The night before this committee's final meeting, Townes slept fitfully, as the scientists hadn't been successful in reaching their goal. Up early, he couldn't get any breakfast because his hotel's café wasn't open yet, so Townes sat in a nearly deserted Franklin Park. Outside all was tranquil, but in his mind there was turmoil as he went over the problem again and again.

"We needed a way to make waves shorter," Townes recalled. "Well, molecules make waves, and I knew how molecules worked. Suddenly I thought, 'Wait a minute...this just might work.' "

He pulled an envelope from his pocket and quickly began to scribble calculations. Within minutes, he'd roughly sketched out a maser - actually, an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation - which could produce microwaves, the shortest variety of radio waves. This discovery ultimately laid the groundwork for the laser, an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

"New ideas do occur, but how they occur, who knows? I'd had moments like this before, but this was by far the most extraordinary," he said. Though he was terrifically excited, Townes decided not to mention his brainstorm at the Navy meeting. "If this was hallucinatory, I needed to think about it some more. I thought maybe I'd make a report about it later."

Returning to the hotel and his well-earned cup of coffee, Townes realized to his astonishment that he'd been sitting across the street from the former laboratory of Alexander Graham Bell - the inventor who first proved that speech could be transmitted via electric waves.

"It's a funny coincidence," he noted. "There's something mystical about it. Maybe Bell inspired me."

Charles H. Townes was born on July 28, 1915, and raised outside Greenville, South Carolina on a 20-acre farm set among rolling fields of apples, corn, cotton, peaches and sweet potatoes. His parents encouraged his early interest in science and allowed Townes and his older brother, Henry, to keep pet lizards, snakes and caterpillars, which from time to time would get lose around the house. He also recalls tinkering with early crystal radio sets, given to him by an uncle who was dean of engineering at nearby Clemson College.

When not yet a teenager, one day Townes caught a type of fish that he couldn't identify in any of his science books. So, he pickled it in formaldehyde and sent the fish off to the Smithsonian Institution. Shortly thereafter, he was thrilled to receive a reply with news that it was either a new species or a previously unknown hybrid. "They asked me to please catch some more," he said.

After skipping the seventh grade, Townes finished his work at Greenville High School at age 15. He then graduated summa cum laude from Furman University in 1935, with degrees in physics and modern languages. From there, he headed to Duke University for a master's degree, followed by a Ph.D. in physics which he received from the California Institute of Technology.

In 1939, Townes was hired to do applied research for the U.S. Military at Bell Laboratories, then headquartered in lower Manhattan. Here, among other things, he studied microwaves that were essential for electronic target sights. Near the end of World War II, a radar system that Townes helped develop was installed in B-32 bombers.

While still at Bell in 1941, Townes married Frances Brown, with whom he would have four daughters: Linda, Ellen, Carla and Holly.

The early 1950's brought him uptown to Columbia University, where research on spectroscopy combined with the notes Townes made on the park bench eventually led to his invention of the maser. In 1959, he was awarded the maser's first patent and in 1960, along with his brother-in-law, Arthur Schawlow, he received a patent for the laser. For these accomplishments, Townes received the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov.

As Townes describes in his charming autobiography How the Laser Happened (Oxford, 1999), long days and nights were spent in Columbia's laboratories, studying the way molecules behave under particular circumstances. This, of course, was before computers or even digital calculators were invented; all work was done longhand, with pencil and paper. In fact, he spent so much time studying just ammonia - "a simple arrangement of a single nitrogen and three hydrogen atoms," Townes helpfully reminds his readers - that he refers to it as "my molecular friend."

In 1967, Townes became a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Aside from an occasional sojourn elsewhere, notably the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he spent most of his career at U.C. Berkeley, where he is now Professor Emeritus. Throughout his tenure, he was active with the United States government, advising Presidents on everything from the Apollo Space program to Strategic Weapons and the MX Missile.

Since the laser is fundamental to 21st-century physics, it is unquestionably Townes' greatest contribution to science. Of the many ways his idea has benefited mankind, Townes says he is especially delighted by laser eye surgery, and that twelve additional Nobel Prizes have been awarded to scientists who've used masers or lasers in their research. Given its far-ranging influence, what happened to him during that spring morning in Washington, DC still fills him with wonder.

"One can consider Buddha. He traveled the country, thinking, and then sitting under the Bodhi tree, revelation finally came. Or Moses. He'd led his people for years, until one night, as he sat in front of the burning bush, he realized, this is what we must do." Townes paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully before he spoke again.

"A scientist thinks, worries, and is eager to find a solution to a problem. Sometimes, just sometimes, a resolution comes," he said. "Looked at this way, there really is a clear similarity between a religious revelation and a scientific one. Yes, I do believe that."

With this in mind, Townes is a staunch supporter of the ongoing dialogue between scientists and theologians and a member of the John Templeton Foundation Board of Advisors.

"I think the Templeton Foundation is doing a terribly important job. For, we must talk openly and thoughtfully. We must have discussions between people of different viewpoints," he concluded. "After all, some people would say that because we don't know something, it can't be. I prefer to think we don't know, because we don't know."

This profile of Charles Townes is the third in an ongoing series of "Historic Milestones," following earlier looks at Sir Joseph Lister and Galileo. "Historic Milestones" are intended to reconsider great scientists, and how their discoveries and theories have changed the world in unforeseen ways.

Stephen Henderson is a freelance writer based in New York and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun and Religion News Service.

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