Bed TIme Story 28

Once upon a time there was a man named Edwin Howard Armstrong and he was an American electrical engineer and inventor, best known for developing FM (frequency modulation) radio. He held 42 patents and received numerous awards, including the first Medal of Honor awarded by the Institute of Radio Engineers (now IEEE), the French Legion of Honor, the 1941 Franklin Medal and the 1942 Edison Medal. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and included in the International Telecommunication Union's roster of great inventors.Armstrong was born in the Chelsea district of New York City, the oldest of John and Emily (Smith) Armstrong's three children. His father began working at a young age at the American branch of the Oxford University Press, which published bibles and standard classical works, eventually advancing to the position of vice president. His parents first met at the North Presbyterian Church, located at 31st Street and Ninth Avenue. His mother's family had strong ties to Chelsea, and an active role in church functions. When the church moved north, the Smiths and Armstrongs followed, and in 1895 the Armstrong family moved from their brownstone row house at 347 West 29th Street to a similar house at 26 West 97th Street in the Upper West Side.The family was comfortably middle class, however, at the age of eight Armstrong contracted a disease, then known as St. Vitus' Dance, which left him with a lifelong physical tic when excited or under stress. Due to this illness he was withdrawn from public school and was home-tutored for two years. In order to improve his health, the Armstrong family moved to a house which overlooked the Hudson River, at 1032 Warburton Avenue in Yonkers. The Smith family subsequently moved next door.Armstrong's tic and the time he was removed from school led him to become socially withdrawn. From an early age he showed an interest in electrical and mechanical devices, particularly trains. He loved heights and constructed a makeshift backyard antenna tower that included a bosun's chair for hoisting himself up and down its length, to the concern of neighbors. Much of his early research was conducted in the attic of his parent's house.In 1909 Armstrong enrolled at Columbia University in New York City, where he became a member of the Epsilon Chapter of the Theta Xi engineering fraternity, and studied under Professor Michael Pupin at the Hartley Laboratories, a separate research unit at Columbia. Another of his instructors, Professor John H. Morecroft, later remembered Armstrong as being intensely focused on the topics that interested him, but somewhat indifferent to the rest of his studies. He was known for challenging conventional wisdom and being quick to question the opinions of both professors and peers. In one case he recounted how he tricked an instructor he disliked into receiving a severe electrical shock. He also stressed the practical over the theoretical, stating that progress was more likely the product of experimentation and work based on physical reasoning than on mathematical calculation and formulae (known as part of "mathematical physics").
Armstrong graduated from Columbia in 1913, earning an electrical engineering degree. He later received two honorary doctorates, from Columbia in 1929, and Muhlenberg College in 1941. In 1934, he filled the vacancy left by John H. Morecroft's death, receiving an appointment as a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia, a position he held the remainder of his life.Following college graduation, he received a $600 one-year appointment as a laboratory assistant at Columbia, after which he nominally worked as a research assistant, for a salary of $1 a year, under Professor Pupin. Unlike most engineers, Armstrong never became a corporate employee. He set up a self-financed independent research and development laboratory at Columbia, and owned his patents outright.with this being so and so much more to learn about Edwin Howard Armstrong i would have to say he is on my list for one of the most important inventors in history.




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