I "met" a physics Nobel Prize winner yesterday

[jtbell]

My wife and I were in downtown Greenville, SC. Pop quiz: who is he?

 

[Charles Link]

I had to google this one, but I still am unsure. If his initials are C.T., I think he spoke at one of our Thursday afternoon colloquiums around 1980 at UCLA. I'm not real good with faces, so I can't tell from the statue. On the other hand, we also saw P.A.M. Dirac speak at one of our Thursday colloquiums during the same period, and I can always tell his face when I see a picture of him.

 

[jtbell]

Yep! It's Charles Townes, the Greenville native who got his physics B.S. in his home town, at Furman University. I never got to meet him in the flesh, although I did meet Dirac once when I was in grad school at Michigan. He visited there in 1975 to give a lecture about how he came up with the Dirac equation fifty years earlier.

Townes once gave a lecture at the college where I taught for many years. This was before I arrived there, but I heard the story from my department chairman. He stayed at one of the hotels out by the Interstate exit, and decided to walk around a bit. He strayed onto the grounds of a facility that belonged to a big textile company. A couple of its security guards stopped him for questioning. Maybe they thought he might be a spy from one of their competitors! They were a bit embarrassed when they realized, after a call to the college to check up on his story, that they had a Nobel Prize winner on their hands.

 

[Borek]

Made me think about good old times of the landmark quiz. Knowing the city and that he received the Nobel prize, answer was just a quick google away

 

[StatGuy2000]

Since the statue was in Greenville, SC, I immediately knew the statue had to be that of Charles Townes (I had read in his biographical entry on the Nobel Prize website that he was born in that city).

 

[ZapperZ]

It's funny that I have met 5 Disney Legends, and I have pictures with all of them. But on the other hand, I've met and chatted with 4 Physics Nobel Laureates (even sat next to one on a Southwest flight) and don't have a single picture with them!

I love my priorities!



Zz.