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Charles Townes, the Nobel laureate whose inventions include the maser and laser and who has spent decades as a leading advocate for the convergen ce of science and religion, has won the 2005 Templeton Prize. Townes, 89, secured his place in the pantheon of great 20th-century scien tists through his investigations into the properties of microwaves which resulted first in the maser, a device which amplifies electromagnetic w aves, and later his co-invention of the laser, which amplifies and direc ts light waves into parallel direct beams.
News archive His research, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964, ope ned the door for an astonishing array of inventions and discoveries now in common use throughout the world in medicine, telecommunications, elec tronics, computers, and other areas. It was the 1966 publication of his seminal article, The Convergence of Sc ience and Religion in the IBM journal THINK, however, that established T ownes as a unique voice - especially among scientists - that sought comm onality between the two disciplines. Long before the concept of a relati onship between scientific and theological inquiry became an accepted are na of investigation, his nonconformist viewpoint jumpstarted a movement that until then few had considered and even fewer comprehended. So rare was such a viewpoint at the time that Townes admitted in the paper that his position would be considered by many in both camps to be extreme. No netheless, he proposed, their differences are largely superficial, andth e two become almost indistinguishable if we look at the real nature of e ach. The article was generated from a talk delivered by Townes in 1964 before a congregation at New Yorks famed Riverside Church, known for its embrac e of groundbreaking perspectives on philosophy, theology and social acti vism. The Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spi ritual Realities was founded in 1972 by pioneering global investor and p hilanthropist Sir John Templeton. Given each year to a living person to encourage and honor those who advance knowledge in spiritual matters and valued at 795,000 pounds sterling, the Templeton Prize is the worlds be st known religion prize and the largest annual monetary prize given to a n individual. The prizes monetary value is in keeping with Sir Johns sti pulation that it always be worth more than the Nobel Prizes to underscor e his belief that research and advances in spiritual discoveries can be quantifiably more significant than those recognized by the Nobels. The Duke of Edinburgh will award the prize to Townes in a private ceremon y at Buckingham Palace on May 4th. Townes says he intends to give a majo r portion of the prize money to Furman University, with substantial amou nts to also go to the Pacific School of Religion, the Center for Theolog y and the Natural Sciences, the Berkeley Ecumenical Chaplaincy to the Ho meless, and the First Congregational Church of Berkeley. In remarks prepared for the news conference, Townes said, Science and rel igion have had a long history of interesting interaction. But when I was younger, that interaction did not seem like a very healthy one. Townes, Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California at Berkeley, noted that, as a graduate student at the California Institu te of Technology, the professor directing his research jumped on me for being religiously oriented. After the THINK article was reprinted in The Technology Review, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technolo gy, the journals editor received a letter from a prominent alumnus who t hreatened to have nothing more to do with MIT if it ever again printed a nything like it on religion. Rather than being dampened by such hostility, Townes said it only further stoked his interest, a burning issue he continues to aggressively exami ne in books, journals and lectures at venues ranging from UNESCO to the worlds major institutes of higher learning. I believe there is no long-r ange question more important than the purpose and meaning of our lives a nd our universe, Townes said in his remarks, noting that the Templeton P rize founder had been particularly instrumental in that work. Sir John h as very much stimulated its thoughtful consideration, particularly encou raging open and useful discussion of spirituality and the meaning of lif e by scientists. Charles Hard Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina in 1915 to Ell en and Henry Townes, an attorney. Raised in a Baptist household that emb raced an open-minded approach to biblical interpretation, Townes receive d a BA in modern languages and a BS in physics summa cum laude from Furman University in Greenville when he was 19. Two years later, he rece ived an MA in physics from Duke and, in 1939, a PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology with a thesis on isotope separati on and nuclear spins. That same year, Townes became a member of the technical staff at Bell Lab s, the powerhouse of modern technology that produced such advances as th e transistor, solar cells, and fiber optics, where he specialized in mic rowave generation, vacuum tubes, and solid-state physics. During World W ar II, he helped develop radar systems that effectively performed in the humid conditions of the Pacific Theater. After the war, he became associate professor of physics at Columbia Unive rsity and met Arthur L Schawlow, who had come to the university on a fe llowship and became Townes research assistant. The two would eventually combine their energies (and, coincidentally, become brothers-in-law) to make major advances in the field of microwave spectroscopy, including de signing masers and lasers in the 1950s. Townes often cites his discovery of the principles of the maser - an insi ght that suddenly occurred to him as he sat on a park bench in Washingto n, DC in 1951 - as a revelation as real as any revelation described in the scriptures, and as a striking example of the interplay of how and w hy that both science and religion must recognize. In nominating Townes to the international, interfaith panel of nine judge s that awards the prize, David Shi, president of Furman University, wrot e, He points out that both scientists and theologians seek truth that tr anscends current human understanding, and because both are human perspec tives trying to explain and to find meaning in the universe, both are fr aught with uncertainty. Scientists propose hypotheses from postulates, f rom ideas that ultimately cannot be proven. Shi added, Charles Townes helped to create and sustain the dialogue betwe en science and theology. Thus he has made a profound contribution to the world's progress in understanding - and embracing - the wonder of God's creation. Townes, who became an Officer of the French Legion of Honor in 1990, is a lso the recipient of the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal and nearly 100 other honors and awards, and holds honorary degrees from more than 2 5 universities. During the administration of Ronald Reagan, he served as a member of the Committee on the Contributions of the Behavioral and So cial Sciences to the Prevention of Nuclear War and, as chairman of Reaga ns commission on the MX missile, helped convince the president to reject widespread placement of that weapon. Most recently, Townes has been a champion of optical searches for extrate rrestrial intelligence, using methods he first proposed in a paper in th e journal Nature in 1961, one year after scientists had launched the fir st search for radio transmissions from distant solar systems. His curren t work uses lasers to help combine images from distant telescopes. Towne s most recent book, How the Laser Happened: Adventures of a Scientist, w as published in 1999 to wide acclaim. Townes and his wife of 63 years, the former Frances H Brown, live in Ber keley, California. They are the parents of four daughters and six grandc hildren.
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