Fletcher, Harvey, 1884-1981
Oral history interview with Harvey Fletcher, 1964 May 15.
Concentrates on oil-drop experiment. Family background and early education; undergraduate at Brigham Young University (physics); graduate at University of Chicago, Robert Millikan and Albert A. Michelson as physicists and teachers. Extensive coverage of the work and relationship with Millikan on the "oil-drop" technique with two versions of the nature of the collaboration presented by Vern Knudsen, one from Millikan's autobiography and Fletcher's own account. Work on modification of Stokes' law and Brownian motion. Impact of electric charge measurement. Teaching at Brigham Young 1911-1916; acoustics work at Western Electric Co.(later Bell Labs) on the determination of the critical bands of hearing; dynamics of the cochlea; development of stereophonic sound. Role in formation of Acoustical Society of America. Interests in electronic reproduction of musical tones. Successful effort to develop a school of engineering at Brigham Young. Discussion of Millikan's Nobel Prize, comments by Knudsen. Achievements of son. Also prominently mentioned are: Louis Begeman; Science (journal), and United States Bureau of Standards.
Acoustician and authority on acoustical science. Co-founder of Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc. of Cambridge, MA; president 1953-1969, director 1953-1983. Taught at Harvard, 1940-1946; Associate Professor of Communication Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1947-1959, and lecturer, 1959-1981. Fellow in American Physical Society, Acoustical Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Audio Engineering Society.
Begeman, Louis
Fletcher, Harvey, 1884-1981
Knudsen, Vern Oliver, 1893-1974
Michelson, Albert A. (Albert Abraham), 1852-1931
Millikan, Robert Andrews, 1868-1953.
Acoustical Society of America.
Bell Telephone Laboratories
Bolt, Beranek, and Newman
Brigham Young University.
United States. National Bureau of Standards
University of Chicago
Western Electric Company.
Science (Journal).
Auditory perception.
Brownian motion processes.
Electronic music.
Electrons.
Music -- Acoustics and physics.
Nobel Prizes.
Science and industry
Sound
Sound laboratories.
Stereophonic sound systems.
Stokes' Law.
Oral histories. aat
Interviews. aat
Sound recordings lcgft
Transcripts. aat
King, W. James. interviewer.
Knudsen, Vern Oliver, 1893-1974 interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA