Fiat Lux

International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies

● Thank you to Eugenio Fazio, Rafael Pascual, John Dudley, and everyone else who made this year and conference possible

● Today I want to talk about the extraordinary life of Charles Townes and show clips from “Unturned Stones,” my upcoming documentary about him

Scientific career● Invented the maser/laser and created the field of quantum electronics● Played a key role in the Apollo lunar landings that put man on the moon● Discovered the first polyatomic molecules in space (ammonia, water in

Sagittarius B2)● Pioneered infrared astronomy and discovered the supermassive black hole

at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy by measuring the gas swirling around Sagittarius A and deducing its mass as 3M Suns

● Developed new approaches to infrared interferometry allowing unprecedented resolution and understanding of the dynamics of stars

● Initiated the optical and infrared Searches for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

High-level advising ● Met and advised every US President since Harry Truman (World War II)● Member of the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences since 1970s● Initiated JASON, an elite group of scientists advising the US Government● Championed the Apollo flights to land man on the moon that greatly

increased America’s standing● Advised the Pentagon and strengthened the military● Worked hard on arms control. Charles and a Soviet general were the first

to come up with the idea of banning nuclear weapons in space which led to the global treaty.

● Advised Reagan to reduce MX deployment, and Clinton to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Trailer

Charles Hard Townes

• Born on July 28th, 1915 in Greenville, South Carolina, USA aka “The South”

• Close-knit family that grew up on a farm• All ancestors arrived in America before the

Revolution—most were religious dissidents• Ran through the woods, caught turtles, and

competed for patents with his brother• Developed a strong love of nature

Charles’ family

● Firmly religious and open-minded Baptists● Taught Charles to stand up for what he thinks is right,

even if it is unpopular. This became critical to many of his successes

● To Charles, the beauty of nature was “obviously God-made”

● His parents encouraged his love of nature and allowed him to grow caterpillars in the house

Physics

● Charles decided to make physics his career after his first course in college

● Loved its logic and real-world applicability● Desire for new ideas and discoveries● Got his PhD at Caltech under WR Smythe, studying

isotope separation, nuclei, molecules and spectroscopy● Graduated in 1939 and due to the Depression took a

job in industry at Bell Labs. A failure of sorts, but New York was critical…

New York

1. Met Frances Brown and dated for six months before deciding to marry. 73 year marriage, 4 daughters, many grand and great-grandkids

2. World War II broke out and Charles was instantly assigned to build radar bombing systems, exposing him to engineering

Microwave spectroscopy

• Charles was assigned to build a radar at 1.25cm waves• He knew it would be absorbed by water vapor but was

forced to make it by military leaders• This sparked his interest in studying molecules and

obtaining information about nuclear shape with higher-frequency oscillators

• Charles wanted a higher-frequency oscillator than what was available at the time, so he spent years working on the problem, including chairing a Navy committee to develop millimeter-wave oscillators. No good ideas…

Revelation!

● Sitting on a park bench in 1951, with azaleas in bloom, revelation struck!

● Charles always felt that he could use molecular resonances to produce short waves but felt hampered by thermodynamics

● On that bench he realized he won’t violate thermodynamics by controlling the stimulated emission of radiation with resonant cavities

● Recruited graduate student James Gordon to build the first one

MASER

• By 1954 Charles and James demonstrated the first MASER• He and students coined the acronym to stand for Microwave

Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation• Wanted to produce infrared waves but first built it in microwave

because of spare equipment from WWII and familiarity with ammonia

• A few months before it was working, two Nobel laureates and chairmen of the department, Isidor Rabi and Polykarp Kusch, walked into Charles’ office and angrily demanded he stop working on the project, claiming “You know it’s not going to work! We know it’s not going to work! Stop wasting the department’s money!”

Reactions to the maser

• Niels Bohr thought Charles had misunderstood something, particularly the pure frequencies. Would not listen

• John Von Neumann thought Charles misunderstood something too, but soon after realized it could be done. He knew engineering

• Maser became such a hot topic that Physical Review banned the submission of maser papers

Maser to laser

• Charles’ original intention was to get to the infrared, so he sat down at his desk in 1956 to see if it was possible to push maser techniques to shorter waves

• Realized he can push it to light waves• Talked to his ex-postdoc and future brother-in-law Art

Schawlow, who gave the idea of two mirrors as a resonant cavity

• In December 1958 Charles and Art published the first paper on lasers, titled “Optical Masers and Communications”

Why didn’t Charles build the first laser?

• In 1959 Charles was approached by the US Government to become the intellectual leader of the premier think tank advising the Government and Pentagon. Took the job out of public duty

• Sputnik had been launched in 1957 and the US was badly behind in the space and missile race, and Charles felt there weren’t enough good scientists in Washington D.C.

• Left his laboratory at Columbia University• Ted Maiman read Charles and Art’s paper and

demonstrated the first laser in 1960

Genesis and lasers

Science and religion

● Science and religion are complementary modes of understanding our universe and mankind

● Science understands the what, how, structure and order● Religion understands the why, meaning and purpose● “To me science and religion are both universal, and

basically very similar. In fact, to make the argument clear, I should like to adopt the rather extreme point of view that their differences are largely superficial, and that the two become almost indistinguishable if we look at the real nature of each.”

Revolutions in science

• During the 19th century, causal determinism was dominant in science

• Lord Kelvin felt that physics only needed a few refinements• Laplace said he could calculate the entire future with the

velocity and position of every particle• The study of atoms and light led to quantum mechanics and

showed the role of uncertainty at the atomic level• Godel’s theorem—Nothing can be absolutely proved. All logic

requires a set of postulates aka assumptions. No way to check if they are self-consistent

Commonalities perceived as differences

• Faith:• “Einstein spent the last half of his life looking for a unity between

gravitational and electromagnetic fields. Many physicists felt that he was on the wrong track, and no one yet knows whether he made any substantial progress. But he had faith in a great vision of unity and order, and he worked intensively at it for thirty years or more. Einstein had to have the kind of dogged conviction that could have allowed him to say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.””

• Revelation:• “Scientific knowledge, in the popular mind, comes by logical deductions or by

the accumulation of data which is analyzed…but such a description is a travesty on the real thing. Most of the important scientific discoveries come about very differently and are much more closely akin to revelation.”

Reason and experiments in religion

• “Each day we see things and do things that affect the actions of other people; we read history and learn about the sequence of events that brought us to where we are today. Daily activities and historical understanding represent experience which is many ways very much like experimental observations, but it is normally experience of unique and unrepeatable events. Religious experience typically belongs in this category, as does some of social science. Theology, which among other things reflects on human experience, relies heavily on the history of unpreatable events. But we evaluate these, applying whatever logic we can muster, perhaps subconsciously, along with intuition, to form our religious views.”

Common domain of knowing

● Why are we here? Where are we going?● Both science and religion try to understand the origins and evolution of the

universe and mankind ● Physical laws of universe are strikingly accurate for us to be here● Found no life outside of Earth● Probability of formation of life is unknown, evidence states life on Earth

started only a handful of times, indicating low probability of formation even on a favorable planet

● Science and religion indicate man has a special place in the universe● The rise of science and technology has put us firmly in control of our own

destiny, making our values and morals critical to our long-term success

Conclusions

• Lasers in Rome, the importance of values• Charles died on January 27, 2015, 185 days

after his 99th birthday• 185/365 + 99 = 99.5• Charles always wanted to live to 100, and

technically he made it!