Charles Hard Townes was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated with both maser and laser devices. He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. Townes was an adviser to the U.S. Government, meeting every President from Harry S. Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999). The Nobel Prize in Physics 1964, announced October 29, 1964. Charles H. Townes, Nicolay G. Basov, and Aleksandr M. Prokhorov, “for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle”. Charles H. Townes: born 1915, Greenville, SC, USA. Nicolay G. Basov: born 1922, Usman, USSR (now Russia). Aleksandr M. Prokhorov: born 1916, Atherton, Australia. Wiki link Wiki link Wiki link Data: the Nobel Foundation (CC0).