Pupin, Michael (Idvorsky) 1858-1935

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PUPIN, Michael (Idvorsky) 1858-1935

PERSONAL:

Born October 4, 1858, in Idvor, Hungary (now Yugoslavia); naturalized U.S. citizen, 1993; died of kidney failure March 12, 1935, in New York, NY; married Sarah Katherine Jackson, 1888 (died 1897). Education: Columbia University, B.A., 1883; attended Cambridge University; University of Berlin, Ph.D., 1889. Religion: Serbian Orthodox.

CAREER:

Physicist, educator, and author. Columbia University, New York, NY, instructor, 1890-92, adjunct professor of mechanics, 1892-1901, professor of electro-mechanics, 1901-31, then emeritus. Member of National Research Council and National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Scientific advisor to Yugoslavian delegation at Paris Peace Conference, 1919.

MEMBER:

National Academy of Sciences, American Physical Society, American Mathematical Society, Engineering Foundation (former chair), American Association for the Advancement of Science (president, 1925-26), New York Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, University Club (president, 1930-31), Sigma Xi.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Elliot Cresson Medal, Franklin Institute, 1902; Herbert Prize, French Academy, 1916; Order of the White Eagle (Serbia); Order of the White Lion (Czechoslovakia); Edison Medal, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1920; Medal of Honor, Radio Institute of America; Gold Medal, American Institute of Social Sciences; Gold Medal of Honor, Institute of Radio Engineers; Pulitzer Prize for autobiography, 1923, for From Immigrant to Inventor; Washington Medal for Engineering, Western Society of Engineers, 1928; named Councilor of National Industrial Conference Board, 1929; John Fritz Gold Medal, 1932. Honorary degrees include Doctor of Laws from New York University, University of California; D.H.L. from George Washington University; Doctor of Science from Princeton University, Columbia University, and Union College; L.L.P. from Johns Hopkins University and University of Rochester; and degrees from Muhlenberg College, Marietta College, Rutgers University, Delaware University, Kenyon College, Brown University, University of Rochester, Middlebury College, University of Belgrade, and University of Prague.

WRITINGS:

Max Osterberg, editor, Thermodynamics of Reversible Cycles in Gases and Saturated Vapors: Full Synopsis of a Ten Weeks' Undergraduate Course of Lectures, J. Wiley and Sons (New York, NY), 1894.

From Immigrant to Inventor, Scribner (New York, NY), 1923, reprinted, with foreword by Freeman J. Dyson, 1960.

The New Reformation: From Physical to Spiritual Realities, Scribner (New York, NY), 1927.

Romance of the Machine, Scribner (New York, NY), 1930.

Contributor to scientific journals and publications.

SIDELIGHTS:

Physicist Michael Pupin remains highly regarded for his work in developing the circuitry that enabled the development of long-distance telephone service. His autobiography, From Immigrant to Inventor, which reflects the American dream in its profile of a self-made man and brilliant scientist and inventor in the early twentieth century, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1923.

Pupin was born in 1858, in Idvor, a small Serbian village near Belgrade. Although illiterate, his parents were loving and deeply religious, and encouraged his education. After the sudden death of his father in 1874, sixteen-year-old Pupin immigrated to the United States and found employment in New York City. In addition to working at a series of jobs, he enrolled at Cooper Union, taking evening classes. Awarded a scholarship to Columbia University, he graduated from that school with honors in 1883. Pupin spent two years studying mathematics at Cambridge University before returning to Columbia as John Tyndall fellow in 1885. At the University of Berlin he studied and conducted research in experimental physics under Hermann Von Helmholtz, earning his Ph.D. in 1889.

Pupin returned to New York in 1889 to teach mathematical physics at Columbia, and remained there for the rest of his life, rising through the ranks to instructor become professor of electro-mechanics in 1901. In 1892 he began to experiment with electromagnetic phenomena, which experiments resulted in advances in radio technology when patents for Pupin's inventions were sold to the Marconi Company. His work in X-rays resulted in a way to greatly increase the speed of X-ray photography, as well as the first therapeutic application of X-rays to a woman with breast cancer. His discovery that atoms struck by X-rays emit secondary X-ray radiation made a lasting contribution to electron physics.

As a result of his work, Pupin applied for and received twenty-four patents, many of them in the area of communications transmission. The first to treat electrical transmission over artificial lines mathematically, Pupin developed a theory that served as the foundation for the development of the electrical filters used in all telephonic, telegraphic, and radio transmission. He also devised a way of extending the range of long-distance telephone communication through the use of wire loading coils; the patent for this system was purchased by American Telegraph and Telephone and remains in use today. Pupin also invented the tuned oscillating circuit that allows more than one message to be transmitted along a wire at the same time; Bell Telephone Company became the owner of this technology in 1901.

During World War I Pupin served on the National Research Council and worked to develop telephone communication between aircraft as well as to enhance electronic communications with submarines. Most important contributions was his discovery, under the direction of President Woodrow Wilson, of sonar, which allowed U.S. forces to detect the location of enemy submarines. Following the war, Pupin served as scientific advisor to the Yugoslavian delegation at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He also was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, contributed much of the funding for the American Mathematical Society, and was a founder of the American Physical Society and the National Research Council.

In his autobiography From Immigrant to Inventor Pupin not only recounts the events of his life, but also expresses his belief in science as a means to cure many of the world's ills. He writes: "I firmly believe that in the National Research Council we have an organization which represents the mobilized scientific intellect of the United States, and which in the pursuit of its lofty ideals will someday succeed in creating in our democracy a profound respect for the services of the highly trained intellect." Henry B. Fuller wrote in the New York Times Book Review that "Richness of temperament, and activity of imagination are evident throughout" Pupin's autobiography, the critic noting in particular Pupin's declaration "that scientific research will bring us closer to divinity than any theology invented by man."

Pupin retired from his teaching position at Columbia University in 1931, although he continued his scientific work with the help of an assistant. In recognition of Pupin's lengthy service, the university renamed the building housing his former laboratory the Pupin Physics Laboratory. Twenty-eight American scientists from this laboratory have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize, and the Pupin Laboratory is also noteworthy as the site of the preliminary scientific investigations for the first atomic bomb.

During his lifetime Pupin received numerous other honors in gratitude for his service to science, including five medals and eighteen honorary degrees. His influence in the field of science and technology extended well past his death in 1935: In 1958 the Pupin Medal was created by the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association, and in 1979 Pupin was honored on a postage stamp issued in his native Yugoslavia.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 1, Scribner (New York, NY), 1944.

Encyclopedia of World Biography, second edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

Parkman, Mary R., High Adventurers, Century Co. (New York, NY), 1931.

Preston, Wheeler, American Biographies, Harper (New York, NY), 1940.

Pupin, Michael, From Immigrant to Inventor, Scribner (New York, NY), 1923.

PERIODICALS

New York Times Book Review, October 14, 1923, Henry B. Fuller, review of From Immigrant to Inventor, p. 2; October 21, 1923, pp. 3, 5; December 2, 1923, p. 4.*