| |
ZL2VAL > SETI 13.06.03 14:49l 107 Lines 5506 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 7605_ZL2VAL
Read: GUEST DB0FHN
Subj: Drake award for Charles Townes
Path: DB0FHN<DB0RGB<DB0MRW<OK0PKL<OK0PPL<DB0RES<ON0AR<ZL2TZE<ZL2TZE<ZL2WA<
ZL2AB
Sent: 030613/1056Z @:ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC #:23023 [New Plymouth] FBB7.00g $:7605_ZL
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : SETI@WW
Charles Townes: The Nobel Laureate Who ‘Fathered’ Optical SETI
By Diane Richards
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 06:00 am ET
13 June 2003
Father’s Day came one week early to the SETI community this year as Dr.
Frank Drake, ‘father’ of modern SETI, presented an award bearing his
name to Dr. Charles Townes, Nobel laureate, inventor of the laser, and
‘father’ of optical SETI.
Addressing a crowd of astronomers, astrophysicists, students, and SETI
Institute friends, Townes reflected upon the challenges and joys of
bringing new ideas into the world, and offered sage advice for the
current generation reaping the benefits of his visionary ideas. As he
accepted the 2002 Frank Drake Award for Innovation in SETI and Life in
the Universe Research, Townes -- who also recently accepted a seat on
the Institute’s Board of Trustees -- spoke on themes that are strongly
resonant for SETI researchers: taking chances, strength in conviction,
and the pursuit of a passion.
Sometimes launching a new idea into the world can have its trials.
Townes recalled the pessimism of eminent colleagues as he developed the
laser’s precursor, the maser, while a Professor of Physics at Columbia
University. The Physics Department Chairman, Nobel laureate Isador Rabi
urged Townes to abandon the maser work for more productive lines of
research. Townes’ maser idea met similar skepticism from quantum
mechanics pioneer Niels Bohr and famed mathematician John von Neumann.
Townes remained strong in his convictions that the maser would work and
would yield important scientific dividends. Undaunted by the criticism
of his renowned colleagues, he persevered, and in 1954, the first maser
was ‘born.’ Townes’ first ‘baby’ would soon prove an enormous boon to
radio astronomers who would exploit the maser’s capability to greatly
amplify weak signals from space.
Microwave amplification was only the beginning. Knowing that the maser
amplification technique should work with other portions of the
electromagnetic spectrum, Townes turned his attention to the optical
range and in 1958 published, with Arthur Schawlow, a paper on an
‘optical maser’, later to be known as ‘laser.’
Townes’ immediate and prescient grasp of the device’s potential for
communications outpaced that of Bell Laboratory, his employer. Townes
described the Lab’s initial reluctance to patent the invention. To most
people, the laser seemed a mere novelty that made "pretty spots of red
light on the wall." Undaunted, Townes pressed on, eventually convincing
Bell Labs of the invention’s importance.
Townes’ recognition of the laser’s communication potential directly
touched upon another interest. After reading the groundbreaking paper on
SETI published in 1959, by Morrison and Cocconi, in the journal Nature,
Townes realized that distant and technologically advanced civilizations
could just as easily exploit the optical and infrared portion of the
spectrum as the radio portion. He wrote his first paper on optical SETI
in 1961, one year after Frank Drake conducted the world’s first
scientific SETI experiment, Project Ozma.
Three decades passed before laser technology matured to the point where
sensitive and accurate searches in the optical spectrum became
practical. During a landmark 1997 panel convened by the SETI Institute
to chart the course of SETI research for the first two decades of the
21st Century, Townes’ participation catalyzed the thinking of the
working group’s optical team. Even as the working group continued
deliberations, SETI researchers Paul Horowitz of Harvard and Dan
Werthimer of the University of California each initiated early optical
SETI searches at their institutions. Townes’ foresight and consistent
championing of optical SETI thus garnered him the Frank Drake Award for
Innovation in SETI and Life in the Universe Research.
As Townes concluded his remarks at the awards ceremony, he reminded the
crowd that it is important to pursue ideas that may reside at the far
edges of possibility; this is how knowledge grows. In this light, SETI
is extremely important, he noted. The ramifications of finding a signal,
or of not finding a signal, after thoroughly searching our neighborhood
of stars, using the best scientific tools we have, are equally profound,
and either result tells us something significant about our planet and
ourselves.
Each June, we gratefully acknowledge our fathers, the men who build our
strong foundations when we are growing and become valued advisors to us
in our adulthood. Men who help shape our dreams. Before Townes stepped
from the dais, he left his listeners with an intriguing speculation.
Perhaps in time, he ventured, future generations may benefit from lasers
far more powerful. And perhaps similar technology on distant planets
will be in use, flashing cosmic greetings bright enough to be seen by a
backyard stargazer viewing the sky without the aid of a telescope.
A lovely thought for a summer evening with the family gathered beneath a
sky thick with stars.
==============================
73 de Alan
*-----------------------------------------------------------------*
| Packet: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC APRS: =3903.39S/17406.40E] |
| E-mail: zl2val@qsl.net Snail mail address: http://www.qrz.com |
*-----------------------------------------------------------------*
Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale
bread to begin with?
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
