October 22, 2014
Princeton and the Dawn of the Information Age
Vincent Poor
Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton University
Princeton and the Dawn of the Information Age
Vincent Poor
Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton University
Vincent Poor, Speaker, and Ruth Miller, Introducer
Minutes of the Seventh Meeting of the 73rd Year
President Owen Leach called to order the seventh meeting of the 73rd year of the Old Guard of Princeton at 10:15 in the Friend Center. 99 members were present. Don Edwards led the invocation. Joe Giordmaine read the minutes of the previous meeting.
One guest was introduced by Arthur Eschenlauer: John Hanna.
President Leach reminded us to pay our Old Guard dues if we have not already done so and to notify Ed Weiss, Roland Miller or himself if your email, address or phone number changes. He announced the time and place for today’s meeting, our speaker to be Pam Belluck, Visiting Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and Health and Science Writer at the New York Times. Her topic is “The Vanishing Mind: Portraits of Alzheimer’s Disease.” President Leach advised that those who continue to forget to pay their dues should especially be sure to attend this meeting!
Following these announcements, Ruth Miller introduced the speaker, H. Vincent Poor, Michael Henry Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton University, whose talk was entitled “Princeton and the Dawn of the Information Age.”
Synopsis of the Introduction: H. Vincent Poor received the B.E.E. with Highest Honor (1972) and the M.S. in Electrical Engineering (1974) from Auburn University and the M.A. in Electrical Engineering (1976) and Ph.D (1977) from Princeton University. He has honorary degrees from 4 universities, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, and has been inducted into the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame. His numerous publications demonstrate his continuing contributions to the rapid advances in technology especially in wireless, social and smart-grid networking. He holds a special place in the sensibilities of the Old Guard of Princeton as our sponsor.
Five-Minute Summary of Talk:
Dean Poor began with acknowledging his pleasure at being the sponsor for the Old Guard whose Wednesday meetings are held on the “Eastern Frontier” of the Princeton Campus. His previous two talks to us addressed the wireless world and the Princeton Engineering School. Princeton is justifiably well-known for many achievements but its role in ushering in the information age, a term coined in 1960, is not as well known as it deserves to be.
The ubiquity of information technology (IT) is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that some 6 billion of the world’s 7 billion or so people have access to a cell phone. Among the functions of a smart phone are voice communication, computation, messaging, web access, image and video capture and display, information organization, and media playing --- all of which have benefitted from significant contributions by faculty, students, and associates of Princeton. The hardware, software, and system technologies underpinning these functionalities rely on billions of transistors, built in very low power consuming integrated circuits such as complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS), using ingenious modulation protocols such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), displaying information on constantly improving displays such as liquid crystal displays, storing it memories of ever increasing size such as flash memory technology, integrating it with constantly evolving wireless and networking protocols and services, and controlling it with operating systems, software and applications which number in the millions. Some 34,000 patents pertain to this ensemble of technologies in the 2 cubic inches we carry in our purse or pocket.
To place these contributions into context and to understand Princeton’s roles, Dean Poor treated us to a selective timeline of five eras whose people and achievements made significant contributions to the information age.
Beginning with the 18th century, which saw the creation of the patent office in the US, for example, as part of the Constitution, “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts” by granting to the inventors an exclusive right for a limited time in return for publishing the invention. Governance systems had to develop to handle this new concept for promoting and protecting inventions. (President George Washington signed US Patent Number 1 issued to Samuel Hopkins for the making of potash, still a key ingredient in growing the world’s food supply.)
The early 19th century saw the invention of the electromagnet by Joseph Henry (PU 1832-46) who influenced Samuel Morse’s invention of the telegraph around 1842. The later 19th century uncovers Cyrus Brackett who founded Princeton’s School of Electrical Engineering in 1889 and worked with Thomas Edison and Alexander Bell. Early 20th century reveals John Carson (faculty 1912-14) who invented Single Sideband Modulation (SSB) which dramatically improved radio communication. The mid 20th century yields John Bardeen ( PhD 1936) coinventor of the transistor, Alonzo Church (faculty 1929-1941) Alan Turing’s PhD ( 1937) advisor, and John Tukey (PhD 1939) promulgator of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).
Notable organizations formed in Princeton each of which was associated with the University in a plethora of ways. In 1930 the Institute for Advanced Study was founded, which became home to John von Neumann (1933-55) and Claude Shannon (1940-41). In 1942 the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Labs moved to Princeton at which location were created the first liquid crystal displays (LCDs) by George Heilmeier, CMOS devices, and charge coupled devices (CCDs). Notable inventors in Princeton in the 1970s and 80s include Robert Kahn (PhD 1964) co-inventor of the foundation internet protocol TCP/IP, Brian Kernighan (PhD 1969) codeveloper of the UNIX operating system, and David Boggs (BS EE 1972) coinventor of the Ethernet local area networking protocol. The 1970s and 80s saw world class entrepreneurs Eli Harari ( PhD 1973) inventor of flash memory and founder of SanDisk, Eric Schmidt ( BSEE 1976) Chair of Google, Meg Whitman (AB Economics 1977) CEO Ebay and later HP, and Jeff Bezos (BS EECS 1986) founder and CEO Amazon.
Dean Poor then turned to a more in depth profile of the lives and work of what he termed the “three greats”: Alan Turing, John von Neumann, and Claude Shannon, any one of whom would have firmly established Princeton’s place in the firmament at the dawn of the information age.
The most tragic of the three is Alan Turing (1912-1954) who committed suicide at the age of 41 when he “ran afoul of the oppressive anti-homosexual laws of his day”. In his short life he created the universal Turing machine which became the basis for computer science and led the team that broke the German cipher Enigma during WWII, credited with saving countless lives. He was just pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II in August 2014.
John von Neumann ( 1903-1957) also died an untimely death from cancer at the age of 54. He came to Princeton in 1930 and made seminal contributions to measure theory, game theory, quantum mechanics, the Manhattan Project, ENIAC, ILLIAC, MANIAC, Johnniac, the hydrogen bomb and the Atomic Energy Commission. Dean Poor called him “a true polymath.”
Claude Shannon ( 1916-2001), the creator of information theory and the first to quantify that information is the removal of uncertainty, died at age 84, perhaps ironically of Alzheimer’s. His 1948 Mathematical Theory of Communication and his 1949 Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems stand alongside Einstein’s greatest work as revolutions in human thought.
Ruth Miller, President Emeritus of the Old Guard, observed that of the fourteen photographs on Dean Poor’s final slide, only one is the photo of a woman. Dean Poor lamented that although her observation is an accurate reflection of the sensibilities of two and half centuries he just surveyed it is a fact that information and computer science have become one of the most egalitarian disciplines in our world today. A fitting tribute to Ada Lovelace, the first programmer of Charles Babbage’s Analytic Engine and the founder of modern software systems.
Respectfully submitted,
John Riganati
One guest was introduced by Arthur Eschenlauer: John Hanna.
President Leach reminded us to pay our Old Guard dues if we have not already done so and to notify Ed Weiss, Roland Miller or himself if your email, address or phone number changes. He announced the time and place for today’s meeting, our speaker to be Pam Belluck, Visiting Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and Health and Science Writer at the New York Times. Her topic is “The Vanishing Mind: Portraits of Alzheimer’s Disease.” President Leach advised that those who continue to forget to pay their dues should especially be sure to attend this meeting!
Following these announcements, Ruth Miller introduced the speaker, H. Vincent Poor, Michael Henry Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton University, whose talk was entitled “Princeton and the Dawn of the Information Age.”
Synopsis of the Introduction: H. Vincent Poor received the B.E.E. with Highest Honor (1972) and the M.S. in Electrical Engineering (1974) from Auburn University and the M.A. in Electrical Engineering (1976) and Ph.D (1977) from Princeton University. He has honorary degrees from 4 universities, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, and has been inducted into the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame. His numerous publications demonstrate his continuing contributions to the rapid advances in technology especially in wireless, social and smart-grid networking. He holds a special place in the sensibilities of the Old Guard of Princeton as our sponsor.
Five-Minute Summary of Talk:
Dean Poor began with acknowledging his pleasure at being the sponsor for the Old Guard whose Wednesday meetings are held on the “Eastern Frontier” of the Princeton Campus. His previous two talks to us addressed the wireless world and the Princeton Engineering School. Princeton is justifiably well-known for many achievements but its role in ushering in the information age, a term coined in 1960, is not as well known as it deserves to be.
The ubiquity of information technology (IT) is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that some 6 billion of the world’s 7 billion or so people have access to a cell phone. Among the functions of a smart phone are voice communication, computation, messaging, web access, image and video capture and display, information organization, and media playing --- all of which have benefitted from significant contributions by faculty, students, and associates of Princeton. The hardware, software, and system technologies underpinning these functionalities rely on billions of transistors, built in very low power consuming integrated circuits such as complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS), using ingenious modulation protocols such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), displaying information on constantly improving displays such as liquid crystal displays, storing it memories of ever increasing size such as flash memory technology, integrating it with constantly evolving wireless and networking protocols and services, and controlling it with operating systems, software and applications which number in the millions. Some 34,000 patents pertain to this ensemble of technologies in the 2 cubic inches we carry in our purse or pocket.
To place these contributions into context and to understand Princeton’s roles, Dean Poor treated us to a selective timeline of five eras whose people and achievements made significant contributions to the information age.
Beginning with the 18th century, which saw the creation of the patent office in the US, for example, as part of the Constitution, “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts” by granting to the inventors an exclusive right for a limited time in return for publishing the invention. Governance systems had to develop to handle this new concept for promoting and protecting inventions. (President George Washington signed US Patent Number 1 issued to Samuel Hopkins for the making of potash, still a key ingredient in growing the world’s food supply.)
The early 19th century saw the invention of the electromagnet by Joseph Henry (PU 1832-46) who influenced Samuel Morse’s invention of the telegraph around 1842. The later 19th century uncovers Cyrus Brackett who founded Princeton’s School of Electrical Engineering in 1889 and worked with Thomas Edison and Alexander Bell. Early 20th century reveals John Carson (faculty 1912-14) who invented Single Sideband Modulation (SSB) which dramatically improved radio communication. The mid 20th century yields John Bardeen ( PhD 1936) coinventor of the transistor, Alonzo Church (faculty 1929-1941) Alan Turing’s PhD ( 1937) advisor, and John Tukey (PhD 1939) promulgator of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).
Notable organizations formed in Princeton each of which was associated with the University in a plethora of ways. In 1930 the Institute for Advanced Study was founded, which became home to John von Neumann (1933-55) and Claude Shannon (1940-41). In 1942 the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Labs moved to Princeton at which location were created the first liquid crystal displays (LCDs) by George Heilmeier, CMOS devices, and charge coupled devices (CCDs). Notable inventors in Princeton in the 1970s and 80s include Robert Kahn (PhD 1964) co-inventor of the foundation internet protocol TCP/IP, Brian Kernighan (PhD 1969) codeveloper of the UNIX operating system, and David Boggs (BS EE 1972) coinventor of the Ethernet local area networking protocol. The 1970s and 80s saw world class entrepreneurs Eli Harari ( PhD 1973) inventor of flash memory and founder of SanDisk, Eric Schmidt ( BSEE 1976) Chair of Google, Meg Whitman (AB Economics 1977) CEO Ebay and later HP, and Jeff Bezos (BS EECS 1986) founder and CEO Amazon.
Dean Poor then turned to a more in depth profile of the lives and work of what he termed the “three greats”: Alan Turing, John von Neumann, and Claude Shannon, any one of whom would have firmly established Princeton’s place in the firmament at the dawn of the information age.
The most tragic of the three is Alan Turing (1912-1954) who committed suicide at the age of 41 when he “ran afoul of the oppressive anti-homosexual laws of his day”. In his short life he created the universal Turing machine which became the basis for computer science and led the team that broke the German cipher Enigma during WWII, credited with saving countless lives. He was just pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II in August 2014.
John von Neumann ( 1903-1957) also died an untimely death from cancer at the age of 54. He came to Princeton in 1930 and made seminal contributions to measure theory, game theory, quantum mechanics, the Manhattan Project, ENIAC, ILLIAC, MANIAC, Johnniac, the hydrogen bomb and the Atomic Energy Commission. Dean Poor called him “a true polymath.”
Claude Shannon ( 1916-2001), the creator of information theory and the first to quantify that information is the removal of uncertainty, died at age 84, perhaps ironically of Alzheimer’s. His 1948 Mathematical Theory of Communication and his 1949 Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems stand alongside Einstein’s greatest work as revolutions in human thought.
Ruth Miller, President Emeritus of the Old Guard, observed that of the fourteen photographs on Dean Poor’s final slide, only one is the photo of a woman. Dean Poor lamented that although her observation is an accurate reflection of the sensibilities of two and half centuries he just surveyed it is a fact that information and computer science have become one of the most egalitarian disciplines in our world today. A fitting tribute to Ada Lovelace, the first programmer of Charles Babbage’s Analytic Engine and the founder of modern software systems.
Respectfully submitted,
John Riganati