Physics or engineering

Immediately following the Explorer I launch, while stepping away from the Explorer I data analysis at Iowa City to continue with the Deal II instrument preparations at JPL,

CHAPTER 16 • SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS 439

I was in the midst of a major shift in focus. When I started at the university in 1953, it had been as a physics student, and I took my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in that field. When I undertook the satellite project in 1956 as my graduate research topic, Van Allen and I clearly anticipated that I would develop and prepare the instrument, oversee its launch, and be a major player in processing and analyzing the data and publishing the scientific results.

The decision to switch our experiment to the Army launcher following the Sputnik 1 launch changed that plan. Our agreement with JPL included launching our instrument in two steps. As described earlier, a simple version was launched first in the interest of programmatic speed. That was followed by the launch of our full instrument. Thus, the first U. S. space data were arriving at Iowa City while I was still preparing the second instrument at JPL.

Naturally, we all wanted the Explorer I data to be examined as quickly as possible. Ernie Ray assumed the responsibility for processing the data. Carl McIlwain soon arrived back on campus from his Fort Churchill expedition, and with great enthusiasm and energy, the two of them and Van Allen set about to uncover what that spaceborne Geiger-Muller counter had to report. For the first two and a half months after the Explorer I launch, it was necessary for me to follow that effort from a distance.

A few months later, that situation was prolonged, when the enthusiasm resulting from the successful Explorer I and III flights led to quick approval of the Explorer IV, Explorer V and Heavy IGY Satellite programs, and I had to concentrate on the development of those instruments. Thus, the succession of events led me increasingly away from physics and toward engineering.

The shift soon showed up in my academic progression. At the beginning of the spring 1959 semester, I signed up for the last of the mainstream physics courses that were needed for a Ph. D. degree. Those were highly abstract courses in Quantum Mechanics (being taught by Fritz Coester), Nuclear Physics (taught by James Jacobs), and Relativity (offered by Fritz Rohrlich). They did not come easily for me and, frankly, were outside my area of strongest interest. They were requiring a tremendous effort, when my time was being consumed relentlessly by the satellite instrument development in which I reveled.

At the same time, I realized that a wealth of interesting course work was being offered across the street within the Electrical Engineering Department. Consequently, in the middle of that spring semester, I dropped my physics courses and picked up upper-level courses in Electrical Transients and Pulses (taught by Lawrence A. Ware) and Active Networks (offered by Professor Streib). During the next few semesters, in addition to the standard advanced engineering courses, I set up and pursued sev­eral individually tailored courses to cover topics of special interest. One of those was a course in Radio Telemetry. I studied the topic using the text by Nichols and Rauch6 and then “taught” it to Professor Streib in a series of weekly one-on-one sessions.

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

Professors Van Allen and Ware, head of the Electrical Engineering Department, embraced the idea of my changing my major and worked with me to make the transition painless.

I was leading the work on the Physics Department’s S-46 satellite as my Ph. D. thesis project when I made the change. That project went forward without pause, and Professors Van Allen and Ware served as my joint thesis advisors. Although the launch failed due to a rocket malfunction, the satellite performed flawlessly, and the work led to receipt of my Ph. D. degree in electrical engineering in August 1960.

Dividing my time between the two departments worked exceptionally well. I have always been pleased that I studied physics first, as it reinforced my inclination to follow the physicist’s basic approach to problem solving.

Much has been written about the distinction between the two fields. One expression of the difference is the somewhat tongue-in-cheek assertion that a physicist builds instruments as a necessary adjunct to pursuing his study of nature, while the engineer studies physics in order to support his love of instrument development. By that measure, I fit best in the latter category.

Throughout my postuniversity years, I have felt that I was somewhat uncomfortably straddling the fence between the two fields. Sometimes I enjoyed the benefits of membership in both “clubs,” but sometimes I felt that I was not a full member of either.