Radio Broadcast - 1925, February - 113 Pages ... - VacuumTubeEra

.
the
';
tory.
;
Early
:
scholar.
and
company on sweet biscuits. 1 1 was not the
^mechanical act. of pressing the name on the
crackers that interested him, for that merely
required a certain manual dexterity. It was
the. boiler room in the factory that fascinated
iseventeen-year-old Pupin.
in the morning, before the factory
whistle blew, he was shoveling coal, watching
the fires, and learning engineering from the
fireman.
How Michael Pupin Succeeded 663
There, in the boiler room, he had his
first lessons in engineering. He was puzzling
over the phenomena of light and sound, but
the boiler-room professor could not shed much
light on his difficulties.
A
BOILER SHOP SCHOOL
improvised school, .with its science
THIS
department in the basement, had a classical
course which was given on the top floor.
In a philanthropic attempt to utilize some
: waste space to the advantage of the workers,
the company had made sleeping accommoda--
tions in the attic of the factory. Pupin, a
homeless waif, lived in this make-shift dormi-
One of his roommates was a crippled
German student with a remarkable knowledge
of Greek and Latin, a veneration
for ancient civilization,
and a contempt for
modern industrialism. He
instilled in Pupin a love for
the classics. At the close
of the factory day the two
machine workers forgot
their manual labor during
the long mill hours, and recited
Latin prose and reveled
in the sound of Greek verse.
Naturally under these circumstances,
Pupin longed
!for more education. He
had no money to pay for
college tuition. But a boy
who had taught himself the
ways of a new land could
find the means to get further
education. He did.
The factory was his high
school. For a science laboratory,
he used the boiler
room . for his classical
subjects, he had an expert
tutor in the German
In his Columbia
College entrance examinations
he did so brilliantly
that he was given a scholarship
for the entire four years.
College over, Pupin was offered his choice of
a fellowship in either literature or science.
His record in both departments had been
equally high, but he
.
chose the science.
"When I was a little sheep herder in the old
country," Professor Pupin confides, "we used
to warn each other about straying cattle, by
means of signals which we sent by tapping on
a knife stuck deep in the hard 1
ground. had
observed that the sound was carried for greater
distance through the hard ground than
through the air. could not understand I why.
It was a problem that fascinated me so that
when I had the chance to continue my studies,
I selected science in the hope that it might
answer my question."
In Europe, Professor Pupin worked at. Cambridge
and then studied for a doctor's degree
at Berlin. Meantime Columbia University,
his alma mater, had organized a department of
electrical engineering
in the school of mines.
When Pupin heard of it, he applied for the
position. Needless to say a student who had
made his brilliant college record, who had won
scholarships in Europe, was promptly given
the post at Columbia.
A
RECENT PHOTOGRAPH
Underwood & Underwood
Of Professor Pupin, who now holds the chair of
mathematical physics at Columbia University