How the Laser Happened: Adventures of a Scientist - Hardcover

... marvellous ... demonstrates how curiosity-driven research can have unexpected and extraordinary practical ramifications ... not only about the evolution of the laser but also serves as a brief autobiography of Charles Townes ... Although brief this book is fascinating reading. If a friend or a politician should ask you, Why does one do science and what is the benefit to society? I recommend that you give him or her a copy of How the Laser Happened. (ISIS)

Charles Townes, a Nobel laureate, is one of the leading figures in twentieth-century physics, inventor of the maser and the laser, and one of the pioneers in the use of spectroscopic techniques to determine the atomic composition of stars. This book is the memoir of a life devoted to scientific research, and also to the application of this research in the public sphere.