Annie Jacobsen
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
So Charles Townes, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing the laser, I called him up.
This was in 2014, I believe.
There wasn't lasers before 2014?
That's when I interviewed him.
He invented the laser in – I think he won the Nobel Prize in 61 or 62.
And he was 99 years old when I interviewed him, still keeping office hours at Berkeley.
He had his secretary on the line and gave this incredible interview.
And I asked him about his development of the laser.
But you want to hear – you might be interested in this.
is the guy who invented the laser.
I mean, when you really think about that.
And he told me, I said, well, who do you go to when you're having trouble when you're Charles Townes?
And he said, well, I took that particular idea to two colleagues, Einstein and von Neumann.