Charles Hard Townes died a week ago, aged 99. He was a physicist at Berkeley who came up with the principle of the laser; at age 98, he’d stopped coming into the office every day. His obituaries are thorough and their praise is justified. I’d met him for reasons the obituaries don’t mention. He helped […]
adaptive optics
My grandfather was interested in the Faust legend and I inherited the interest, though for the life of me I don’t know why it’s interesting and he died before I could ask him. Whatever it is, it has to do with trading your soul for certain bad kinds of knowledge, or with excessive curiosity leading […]