CHARLES H. TOWNES - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 04/14/1970 - HFSID 100754

CHARLES H. TOWNES
Physicist Charles H. Townes wrote this letter to a fellow scientist in 1970, suggesting changes to a letter about the Space Science Board's Summer Study on Space Science and Applications Priorities. Townes shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physics for building the first maser, a predecessor to the laser, and for demonstrating that it was possible to construct a laser.
Typed letter signed: "C. Townes", 1p, 8½x11. University of California, Berkeley, 1970 April 14. To Dr. William C. Bartley, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. Dr. Townes thanks Dr. Bartley for his letter relating to participants of the Space Science Board's Summer Study on Space Science and Applications Priorities. In the last paragraph, he suggests a change. In part: "The task of establishing scientific priorities across the major disciplines is a difficult one indeed. In the current fiscal climate this undertaking is made more difficult than usual, since there may not be sufficient funds any longer to support some programs which are not given high priority...." American physicist Charles Hard Townes (1915-2015), shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physics with Soviet scientists Aleksandr M. Prokhorov and Nikolay G. Basov "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". Townes created the first maser - a predecessor to the laser that amplified microwaves - with two students in 1953. He and A. L. Schawlow also showed that it was possible to construct a laser in 1958, two years before the first ruby laser was built by Theodore Maiman. Staple holes at upper left corner, which is creased. Several tack head-size stains. 3 lines underlined in red (unknown hand). Ink notes (unknown hand) at upper and lower right blank areas. Otherwise, fine condition.