MIT and the Electron

The western world owes a tremendous debt to the electronic scientists of Massachusetts Institute of Technology for their pioneering in research and development over a period of thirty years now. A brief summation of some of the important accomplishments

By JEROME B. WIESNER, Director, Research Laboratory of Electronics, M.I.T.

THIRTY years ago the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked an electron squarely in the eye and began to explore the challenging versatility of an electron tube's capacity to control electric current. The pioneers were men whose names are now eminent in the electronic field: Compton. Bush, Stratton, Bowles, Slater, Guillemin, Wiener, Brown, Barrow, Chu, and many more; the results of their research advanced electronic knowledge and contributed to the development of a science that has resulted in the establishment of many a successful Massachusetts industry. M.I.T. was among the first schools in the country to offer a well established educational program in this field. Through the years we have worked to further this research and to train young people in electronic techniques.

It was in the early 1920's that the application of electronics to communication began at M.I.T. E. L. Bowles and his associates pioneered in developing a teaching and research program in the communication area. The work of E. A. Guillemin in circuit theory, and of J. A. Stratton and W. L. Barrow in electromagnetic theory helped to build a firm foundation for the new science.
In the early 1930's Karl T. Compton, followed by W. B. Nottingham amd his students, among whom were such men as J. B. Fisk and D. B. Langmuir, started the work that contributed so significantly to the understanding of the now universally used oxide-coated cathode. This research has been continued by M.I.T.'s physical electronics group whose work in surface physics and field emission has played an indirect but important part in high-voltage applications. The annual Physical Electronics Conference, an invitation conference initiated by Professor Nottingham in 1936, brings together at M.I.T. the outstanding research people of the United States and many foreign countries.

During the 1930's the electronics field flourished; it was then that the discoveries and inventions that were to lead to the great electronic developments of the next decade appeared. Vannevar Bush built the Rockefeller differential analyzer with the use of some 3000 electron tubes. W. L. Barrow and L. J. Chu pioneered in the work in microwave techniques. The Institute's great Norbert Wiener began his work on electrical circuit theory which, before it was finished,

was to provide a unifying cement for all communications, and be the stimulus for research in fields as diverse as chemical production and neurophysiology. G. S. Brown and T. S. Gray set up a tube laboratory that was one of the earliest, perhaps the earliest, in which undergraduates could themselves make vacuum tubes. Barrow's work on microwaves was applied to airplane blind-landing problems and pointed the way for many of the modem developments in this field. A. R. von Hippel had begun his work in dielectrics, work that was to provide a wealth of much needed materials to the industry.

It was rather logical, with all the varied electronic research that was bsing carried on, that in 1940 the National Defense Research Committee decided to locate a Radiation Laboratory at M.I.T. That story of almost incredible achievement has been told elsewhere.
At this time M.I.T. had the only university servomechanisms laboratory in the country, and we were called on for a program of research and education in the remote control of gun mounts, armed turrets, radar antennae, and missiles.
We were also asked, by the military services, to establish a radar school. In this school training was given to nearly 9000 people for the Army and the Navy, including the Coast Guard and the Marine Corps.
The years immediately following World War II were bountiful years. With a great heritage in the form of new techniques, an accumulation of ideas, ample equipment, and a large body of mature students, we faced the future with enthusiasm. For a brief space, men freed from the high pressure of work involved in the quick solution of wartime problems were able to return to research on the more general, peacetime facets of the electronic field. This work has been centered around M.I.T.'s Research Laboratory of Electronics. In 1943 and 1944 the Institute administration had set aside funds and laid plans to establish, as soon as the end of the war permitted, a laboratory that would act jointly with the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Physics to further the research work of the Institute in the broad field of electronics. The armed services contribute to the support of the Laboratory through a joint contract with the Signal Corps. Additional support has come from certain industrial companies This cooperative effort, established by J. A. Stratton and A. G. Hill, has given the Institute facilities for the advancement of knowledge in the field of electronics which are probably unequalled by any other educational institution.