Charles H. Townes Quotes
There is some truth to the idea that, in the fields of science, individual contributions of great significance are possible.
Townes, Charles H. "Nobel Banquet Speech." NobelPrize.org, Nobel Prize Outreach AB, 10 Dec. 1964, www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1964/townes/speech/.
While this is often true, it is another Mises exaggeration using the word “every” in this quotation. Darwin’s theory of evolution was immediately accepted by most other scientists and intellectuals. The opponents then were the religious fundamentalists. The same is true today. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was accepted by most other scientist as soon as they read it and worked out the mathematics. That was before there was any physical or experimental evidence, which did not come till 1919.
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 United States Government, meeting every US President from Harry Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999).
