Wishing Charles Townes a Happy 99th Birthday
Nobel Laureate Randy Schekman on Charles Townes and HydroGrameenVideo remarks by Randy Schekman, 2013 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, for the fifth Townes and Tagore symposium on the water crisis in India.
Transcript
It’s my pleasure to welcome you to the fifth Townes Tagore symposium on the water crisis in India. I understand that our great colleague, Charles Townes, particularly now on the occasion of his 99th birthday, has taken a great interest in the issue of water scarcity, which is a greater concern in India than it is even in California.
I am not an expert in the topic, but I have seen Charles over the 38 years that I’ve been here at Berkeley. He is obviously a legend here in the physics program at Berkeley. And I want to speak just very briefly to the importance of having someone of that distinction here at a public institution.
It’s been my privilege to be at a public institution virtually my entire life. And I feel it’s terribly important for people like Professor Townes, and those of us who follow him, to remain and to support the mission of public higher education in California, and indeed in all of the United States. All of us who have achieved something here at Berkeley could easily have moved to a private institution. But what is unique about Berkeley, indeed about the University of California, is how important our mission is in serving working and middle-class students.
And so it is a tribute to Charles in particular that he has stuck to this institution and devoted his career, indeed his life, to science, to physics, and now to the importance of using his influence and brilliance to forward the cause of water conservation as it applies around the world, and in this case in particular in India.
So I salute you, Charles, on the occasion of your 99th birthday. I look forward to many more. And those of us who follow you admire what you’ve done for this institution. Happy birthday.
I want to make special note of the program that Charles has contributed to, involving the HydroGrameen technology developed by the IIBHB. After 35 years of work in Bengal, India, Europe, and California, this work will be presented in a seminar on this occasion. So I offer a special tribute to Charles for his vision in support of this program.
Transcript of the video, lightly edited: hesitations and repeated words are left out.
