November 19, 1998
Appreciation
Spoken at the meeting of the MIT Faculty, November 18, 1998
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November 19, 1998
Appreciation |
Resolution: Congratulations to Institute Professor Emeritus Arthur Robert von Hippel on the occasion of his 100th Birthday on November 19, 1998
Professor Arthur Robert von Hippel, Institute Professor Emeritus since 1962 in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is widely recognized for his outstanding research in dielectrics, molecular science, and molecular engineering. He founded the MIT Laboratory for Insulation Research (L.I.R.) in 1940, pioneering in materials research, measurements, and instrumentation, and served as its head until his first retirement in 1964. His research theme was of molecular engineering for the "making of materials to order." His work has included ferroelectrics and ferromagnetics; electric breakdown; dielectric polarization, rectifiers and photocells; gas discharges; and solid-state physics. He is distinguished for his pioneering research in the field of molecular science and molecular engineering, which he has described as a "broad new discipline ... comprising the structure, formation, and properties of atoms, molecules, and ions; of gases, liquids, solids and their interfaces; the designing of materials and properties on the basis of this molecular understanding; and their imaginative application for devices." The L.I.R. pioneered in materials research, measurements, and instrumentation, evolving to the present day MIT Center for Materials Science and Engineering and to my laboratory, the MIT Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems. The Material Research Society's highest award, the von Hippel Award, is an international hallmark of excellence in the field of materials research. Von Hippel was the first recipient of this award in 1977, thereafter named for him.
Professor von Hippel is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Washington Academy of Sciences, and a member of Sigma Xi, the American Chemical Society, and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. From 1964 to 1965 he served as scientific advisor to the Office of Naval Research, Washington, D.C. and received the Superior Civilian Service Award from the Department of the Navy in 1965. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1977.
Von Hippel was a Ph.D. student in the Institute for Applied Electricity at the University of Göttingen. He finished his thesis in 1924, summa cum laude, designing and building a new type of thermo-microphone which allowed transmission of radio broadcasts as free as possible of frequency distortion. He then took on an assistant position at the Physics Institute in Jena of Prof. Max Wien. Von Hippel's next two years concerned studying the sputtering of metals where he demonstrated that the metal was released as atoms from the cathode by positive ion bombardment.
In 1927 he took a one-year Rockefeller fellowship and went to the University of California at Berkeley to measure the ionization characteristics of mercury atoms by electron impact. He was friendly with Prof. Leonard Loeb, specialist in gas discharges, and Robert Oppenheimer from Cal. Tech who also lectured at Berkeley.
He returned as a Privat-Dozent (assistant professor) at the Physikalische Institute in Göttingen from 1929-33. After the death of his first wife due to a flu epidemic he married James Franck's daughter Dagmar in 1930. With the rising tide of anti-semitism and the coming of the Nazis, marrying a Jew was risky, but von Hippel had taken a stand as an anti-Nazi and had written counter-declarations. Scientifically, this last period in Göttingen was fruitful. Von Hippel developed a basic understanding of electric breakdown in gases and single crystals, and of the meaning of Lichtenberg figures.
At this time a new European-type university was being founded in Istanbul and about thirty European professors were hired to staff it, including von Hippel who established a Laboratory of Electrophysics in an old palace. However, jealousies of the old Turkish faculty, misunderstandings, and being in a strange culture made life unpleasant here, so after one year the von Hippel family left Turkey. Von Hippel then accepted an invitation from Niels Bohr to lecture at the Technical University in Copenhagen as a guest professor from January 1935-1936.
Von Hippel received an offer from Prof. Karl Compton in 1936 to join the MIT faculty and become "the physicist of the Electrical Engineering Department." Von Hippel became associate professor in 1940 and professor in 1947.
In 1939 with a grant of $5,000 von Hippel founded the Laboratory for Insulation Research, breaking away from classical engineering concepts and departmental constrictions. The name was chosen to justify having a group of physicists and chemists in an electrical engineering department, as insulation is of obvious concern to electrical engineering and also avoided offending other people's interests, but this name later proved to be much too narrow. The Laboratory became internationally known in the field of modern materials research.
By this time von Hippel realized his challenge, to transform the field of materials research into the molecular designing of materials and devices. Because of the wartime performance of the L.I.R., they received the first Army-Navy-Air Force contract for peacetime work. Co-workers from many nations joined L.I.R., and von Hippel's first book, Dielectrics and Waves was written and was published in 1954 simultaneously with the book Dielectric Materials and Applications which grew out of a 1952 MIT summer session course trying to teach scientists, engineers, manufacturers, and users of dielectrics to speak each other's languages and appreciate multiple problems, failures, and advances.
Throughout its existence, L.I.R. strove for a synthesis of knowledge, drawing research students in with unofficial agreement from the MIT departments of physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, metallurgy, etc. A joint education in "molecular science" and "molecular engineering" made firm allies of the scientists striving for a deepening understanding and the engineers striving for intelligent applications.
The Laboratory of Insulation Research at MIT educated about sixty doctorate students, two Electrical Engineering degrees, forty-seven Master Degree theses, a large number of bachelor theses, and numerous post-doctorate workers from all over the world, many of them later renowned. At the time of von Hippel's official retirement in 1964, L.I.R. had about seventy members in eight research groups, each headed by a professor. Seven of these groups helped form the new Center for Materials Science and Engineering -- Crystal Physics, Magnetics, Magnetic Spectroscopy, Structure Analysis, Photoconductor Systems, Mass Spectroscopy, and Magnon-Phonon Spectroscopy. As recognition today the Center has a von Hippel reading room.
A two-day Conference on the Structure and Properties of Dielectric Materials was held at MIT on June 16-17, 1964 to honor Prof. von Hippel upon his retirement. However, Prof. von Hippel still kept on teaching and performing research in dielectric spectroscopy and electric strength of materials. He became taken with the question: How does Nature proceed with its design in creating living systems? Following the theme "from atoms to living systems," he studied electrobiology through better understanding of molecular electrochemistry of liquids and solids. He focused on the polarization and conduction of pure water and perfect ice single crystals and the three main properties of H2O molecules -- hydrogen bonding, dipolar action, and ion formation. His last publication was entitled "From Atoms Toward Living Systems". His last student received a Sc.D. in 1979.
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Created: Nov 18, 1998
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Modified: Dec 3, 1998|
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