A Culture of Innovation Insider Accounts of Computing and Life at BBN

Chapter 1. Founding a Culture of Engineering Creativity [17]
for reducing the noise in the passenger compartment of their new Model 440propellerdriven
passenger airplane. Ichoose Ed Kerwin asmy partner and the two of us with
our wives lived in San Diego for two months in the summer of 1954. There, I designed
novel mufflers for the exhausts ofthe two engines and Ed rearranged the exhaust tubes
in the engines to further reduce the noise. We also designed a new acoustical lining for
the interior and asked for thicker window panes. This job was also a complete success.
The largest consulting job that BBN undertook during the first decade ofitsexistence
was for the Port of New York Authority. The PNYA wanted all new jet-propelled
passenger aircraft to create nomore noise annoyance in neighborhoods surrounding
Idlewild (Now JFK) airport than was created by existing propeller-propelled passenger
aircraft. The management of PNYA asked me to take responsibility for this project
based on my successes at Cleveland and San Diego. Iasked Karl Kryter to take over the
responsibility for determining how much the noise from jet-engines had to bereduced
to makethem no noisier (to listeners) than propeller-engines. Laymon Miller was put in
charge of making noise measurements of propeller aircraft in neighborhoods around
Idlewild both daytimes and nighttimes. The first jet passenger aircraft was being built
by Boeing Aircraft and was to bepurchased by Pan American Airways. Measurements
were performed by the staff of BBN of the noise produced by this first Boeing 707
aircraft while it was taking off and flying over neighborhoods. Kryter exposed human
subjects to the measured 707 noise and the measured propeller aircraft noise and it was
found that for equal “perceived noisiness,” the 707 noise would have to bereduced by
15 decibels — a tremendous amount. Boeing was forced to put mufflers onthe aircraft.
In addition, tobring the 707 noise in neighborhoods down to the desired “equal” level,
the plane on takeoff had to climb as steeply as possible; and at about 1.5miles from
start of take-off roll the engine power had to becut back, and the plane had to fly at
aconstant altitude until it ceased to beover thickly settled neighborhoods. Boeing,
Pan American and even the FAA tried every way possible to getthese requirements
nullified, even threatening to sue BBN for “incompetence.” But PNYA stood its ground,
and the noise requirements wentinto effect. The first jet passenger aircraft flying out
of Idlewild began operations in November 1958, with no objections from surrounding
neighborhoods.
I also took on management responsibility for the acoustics of aseries of concert
halls — usually working with astaff member from the acoustics department. I traveled
to hear music in about fifty halls, and Iinterviewed about two dozen leading conductors
and musicians and a wide range of music critics in the USA and England. The halls I
was involved in included the Aula Magnain Caracas Venezuela (1954), the Fredric Mann
Auditorium in Tel Aviv (1957), the Binyanei Ha’Oomah hall in Jerusalem (1960), the
Tanglewood Music Shed(1959), and the Lincoln Center concert hall and opera housein
New York (1962–63). This sequence led to my book, Music, Acoustics, & Architecture. 8
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By 1962, BBN had grown to suchasize that all my attention was consumed by management
activities. After BBN went public in 1961, John Stratton, the new treasurer, began
exerting a new influence that almost had grave consequencesfor BBN. First, he had
the idea that BBN should grow by acquisition, rather than at the 26 percent compound
annual growth that had occurred up to then (and continued through my presidency,
which ended in 1969). Several small companies were acquired by BBN, mostly by an
exchange of stock, but all failed.
Then Stratton had his big idea in 1968. He became acquainted with the Graphic
Controls Corporation in Buffalo, New York, which made Codex charts andbusiness