Arthur Leonard Schawlow

Schawlow in 1981

Arthur Leonard Schawlow (May 5, 1921 – April 28, 1999) was an American physicist and co-inventor of the laser with Charles Townes. His central insight, which Townes overlooked, was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to take MASER action to visible wavelengths. He shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn for his work using lasers to determine atomic energy levels with great precision.

Quotes

• Never measure anything but frequency!
  • Advice to the students. Quoted in Hänsch, Theodor W. "Nobel lecture: passion for precision." Reviews of Modern Physics 78.4 (2006): 1297.
• To do successful research, you don't need to know everything, you just need to know one thing that isn't known.
  • as quoted by Steven Chu and Charles H. Townes (2003). Biographical Memoirs V.83. National Academies Press. p. 201. ISBN 0-309-08699-X. 

• Anything worth doing is worth doing twice, the first time quick and dirty and the second time the best way you can.
  • as quoted by Steven Chu and Charles H. Townes (2003). Biographical Memoirs V.83. National Academies Press. p. 201. ISBN 0-309-08699-X. 

• Dead is when the chemists take over the subject.
  • answering question if the subject of spectroscopy was dead for the physicists, as quoted by Steven Chu and Charles H. Townes (2003). Biographical Memoirs V.83. National Academies Press. p. 202. ISBN 0-309-08699-X. 

• Anything will lase if you hit it hard enough.
  • as quoted by Steven Chu and Charles H. Townes (2003). Biographical Memoirs V.83. National Academies Press. p. 203. ISBN 0-309-08699-X. 

• A diatomic molecule is a molecule with one atom too many.
  • as quoted in Dave DeMille (December 2015). "Diatomic molecules, a window onto fundamental physics". Physics Today 68 (12): 34. DOI:10.1063/PT.3.3020.