Townes, Charles Hard (1915-...), is a United States physicist. In 1951, he explained the basic principles that led to the development of the maser. A maser is a device that uses the energy of molecules or atoms to amplify radio waves. Townes helped build the first maser in 1953. In 1958, Townes and Arthur L. Schawlow proposed the laser, a device for amplifying light waves. For his work, Townes shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics with two Soviet scientists who also developed and improved masers.