Leo Beranek
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Leo Beranek | |
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Bolt, Beranek and Newman Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | |
Doctoral advisor | Frederick Vinton Hunt |
Doctoral students | Kenneth N. Stevens James L. Flanagan |
Leo Leroy Beranek (September 15, 1914 – October 10, 2016) was an American
Early life and education
Beranek was born in 1914 in Solon, Iowa. His father Edward Fred Beranek was a farmer whose ancestors came from Bohemia (in what is now the Czech Republic) and his mother Beatrice Stahle, previously a schoolteacher, had become a farmwife.[1] Edward's paternal grandparents Josef Beránek and Anna Šimandlová were from Nynice and Jarov respectively.[2]
Beranek first started school in a
In 1924 Beranek's father brought home a battery-powered radio containing a single
Beranek applied for and was accepted at nearby Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. In the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, money was tight, but he had managed to save $500. Worried about the shaky financial situation, he went to his bank and managed to withdraw $400 to pay his college tuition in advance. The bank failed the next day, and Beranek lost the remaining $100.[1]: 12 During freshman year at college, Beranek was told by his father that he could not expect any family money and that he was on his own. In the summers of 1932 and 1933 Beranek worked as a field hand on local farms, to earn tuition money and to improve his physical condition. Beranek moved into two rooms above a bakery, shared with three other students to save money. He also continued to repair radios and played in a dance band, but falling income forced him to consider dropping down to a single class (in mathematics) during the next academic year.
In August 1933 Beranek was invited to accompany the family of a local dentist to the
In college Beranek became friends with a fellow student who had an
In August 1935 Beranek had a chance encounter with a stranger whose car had developed a flat tire while passing through Mount Vernon. While helping the stranger (who turned out to be Glenn Browning), he learned that the passing motorist had written a technical paper on radio technology. When Beranek mentioned plans for graduate school, Browning encouraged him to apply to Harvard University, a possibility he had regarded as financially out of reach.[1]: 20
Beranek was very busy in his final year at Cornell, running a radio repair and sales business and then transitioning to house wiring for electricity, while carrying a full course load. He managed three major wiring jobs for Cornell, including designing and installing a master antenna system in a new men's dormitory then under construction.[1]: 23 He also continued to date his girlfriend Floss. Beranek graduated from Cornell College in summer 1936 with a Bachelor of Arts. He continued studies at Harvard University, where he received a doctorate in 1940.
Career
During World War II Beranek managed Harvard's electro-acoustics laboratory, which designed communications and noise reduction systems for World War II aircraft, while at the same time developing other military technologies. During this time he built the first anechoic chamber, an extremely quiet room for studying noise effects which later would inspire John Cage's philosophy of silence.
In 1945 Beranek became involved with a small company called
Beranek joined the staff at the
It has been remarked that if one selects his own components, builds his own enclosure, and is convinced he has made a wise choice of design, then his own loudspeaker sounds better to him than does anyone else's loudspeaker. In this case, the frequency response of the loudspeaker seems to play only a minor part in forming a person's opinion.[5]
Beranek's 1954 book, Acoustics, is considered the classic textbook in this field; it was revised in 1986. In 2012, at the age of 98, he collaborated with Tim Mellow to produce an updated and extended revision, published under the new title Acoustics: Sound Fields and Transducers.[6] His famous humorous adage was "Beranek's Law", about the psychological effect of somebody's own design in comparison to other designs.
Beranek's 1962 book, Music, Acoustics, and Architecture, developed from his analysis of 55
From 1983 to 1986, Beranek was chairman of the board of the
Awards and honors
- Fellow of the American Physical Society (1946)[11]
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1952)[12]
- Wallace Clement Sabine Medal of the Acoustical Society of America (1961) for internationally recognized achievements in all phases of architectural acoustics, and his publications on acoustical measurements, and the world's great concert halls.
- Gold Medal of the Audio Engineering Society (1971)
- Gold Medal from the Acoustical Society of America (1975) for leadership in developing, in the United States and abroad, the desire and the capability for achieving good acoustics in communications, workplaces, concert halls, and communities.
- National Medal of Science in Engineering (2002)
- IEEE Founders Medal (2013)
- Rayleigh Medal of the Institute of Acoustics, United Kingdom (2014)
In popular culture
Beranek appeared on the television game show
Bibliography
- Beranek, Leo L. (2004). Concert halls and opera houses : music, acoustics, and architecture (Second ed.). New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4419-3038-5. (The 2nd edition's title differs from the 1st edition's title.) Concert and opera halls: how they sound (1st ed.). Acoustical Society of America. 1996.[13]
- Beranek, Leo (2010). Riding the Waves : A Life in Sound, Science, and Industry. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262513999. (autobiography)
- Beranek, Leo L.; Mellow, Tim (2012). Acoustics : sound fields and transducers. Kidlington, Oxford: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-123-91421-7.
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0262026291. Retrieved 2014-06-09.
- ^ "Planá (PS) 20 | Porta fontium". www.portafontium.eu. Retrieved 2020-03-25.
- ISBN 978-0857892126.
- ^ a b "Leo Beranek Obituary" (PDF). Acoustical Society of America. October 12, 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 14, 2016. Retrieved October 13, 2016.
- ^ Beranek, Leo (1954). Acoustics. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 208.
- ^ "Book Review: A classic text unexpectedly revised". HIFICRITIC, 9 January 2013 archived from the original on 17 September 2013.
- ^ "Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT)". Arts at MIT. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2014-06-09.
- ^ "Leo Beranek celebrates his 100th Birthday today, 15 September 2014". Content. Acoustical Society of America. 2014-09-15. Archived from the original on 24 September 2014. Retrieved 2014-09-19.
- ^ Bryan Marquard and Edgar J. Driscoll (October 13, 2016). "Leo Beranek, acoustics pioneer and a founder of BBN Technologies, dies at 102". Boston Globe. Retrieved October 13, 2016.
- PMID 27106303.
- ^ "APS Fellow Archive". American Physical Society. (search on year=1946 and institution=Harvard University)
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved June 15, 2011.
- doi:10.1121/1.414882.
External links
- Oral History interview transcript for Leo Beranek on 26 February 1989, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
- Oral History interview transcript for Leo Beranek on 30 September 1989, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives - Session I
- Oral History interview transcript for Leo Beranek on 28 October 1989, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives - Session II
- Oral History interview transcript for Leo Beranek on 10 August 2009, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives - interview conducted by Richard H. Lyon
- Leo Beranek Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2011)
Further reading
- Leo Beranek, electrical engineer, an oral history. Conducted in 1996 by Janet Abbate, IEEE History Center, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey