Harry Nyquist
| Harry Nyquist | |
|---|---|
Harry Nyquist (1889–1976)
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| Born | February 7, 1889 Stora Kil, Nilsby, Värmland, Sweden |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Harlingen, Texas, U.S. |
| Residence | United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Electronic engineer |
| Institutions | Bell Laboratories |
| Alma mater | Yale University University of North Dakota |
| Doctoral advisor | Henry Andrews Bumstead |
| Known for | Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem Nyquist rate Johnson–Nyquist noise Nyquist stability criterion Nyquist ISI criterion Nyquist plot Nyquist frequency Nyquist filter Fluctuation dissipation theorem |
| Notable awards | IEEE Medal of Honor (1960) Stuart Ballantine Medal (1960) Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1975) |
Harry Nyquist (né Harry Theodor Nyqvist; /ˈnaɪkwɪst/, Swedish: [nʏːkvɪst]; February 7, 1889 – April 4, 1976) was a Swedish born American electronic engineer who made important contributions to communication theory.[1]
Contents
Personal life
Nyquist was born in the Stora Kil parish of Nilsby, Värmland, Sweden. He was the son of Lars Jonsson Nyqvist (b. 1847) and Katrina Eriksdotter (b. 1857). His parents had seven children: Elin Teresia, Astrid, Selma, Harry Theodor, Aemelie, Olga Maria, and Axel.[2] He emigrated to the USA in 1907.
Education
He entered the University of North Dakota in 1912 and received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering in 1914 and 1915, respectively. He received a Ph.D. in physics at Yale University in 1917.
Career
He worked at AT&T's Department of Development and Research from 1917 to 1934, and continued when it became Bell Telephone Laboratories that year, until his retirement in 1954.
Nyquist received the IRE Medal of Honor in 1960 for "fundamental contributions to a quantitative understanding of thermal noise, data transmission and negative feedback." In October 1960 he was awarded the Stuart Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute "for his theoretical analyses and practical inventions in the field of communications systems during the past forty years including, particularly, his original work in the theories of telegraph transmission, thermal noise in electric conductors, and in the history of feedback systems." In 1969 he was awarded the National Academy of Engineering's fourth Founder's Medal "in recognition of his many fundamental contributions to engineering." In 1975 Nyquist received together with Hendrik Bode the Rufus Oldenburger Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.[3]
Nyquist lived in Pharr, Texas after his retirement, and died in Harlingen, Texas on April 4, 1976.
Technical contributions
As an engineer at Bell Laboratories, Nyquist did important work on thermal noise ("Johnson–Nyquist noise"),[4] the stability of feedback amplifiers, telegraphy, facsimile, television, and other important communications problems. With Herbert E. Ives, he helped to develop AT&T's first facsimile machines that were made public in 1924. In 1932, he published a classic paper on stability of feedback amplifiers.[5] The Nyquist stability criterion can now be found in all textbooks on feedback control theory.
His early theoretical work on determining the bandwidth requirements for transmitting information laid the foundations for later advances by Claude Shannon, which led to the development of information theory. In particular, Nyquist determined that the number of independent pulses that could be put through a telegraph channel per unit time is limited to twice the bandwidth of the channel, and published his results in the papers Certain factors affecting telegraph speed (1924)[6] and Certain topics in Telegraph Transmission Theory (1928).[7] This rule is essentially a dual of what is now known as the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem.
See also
References
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<references />, or <references group="..." />External links
- IEEE Global History Network page about Nyquist
- Nyquist criterion page[dead link] with photo of Nyquist with John R. Pierce and Rudy Kompfner
- K.J.Astrom: Nyquist and his seminal papers, 2005 presentation
- Nyquist biography, p. 2
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- ↑ "Sveriges befolkning 1900" [CD-ROM]: Nyqvist, Harry
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ H. Nyquist, "Thermal Agitation of Electric Charge in Conductors", Phys. Rev., Vol. 32, pp. 110–113, 1928
- ↑ H. Nyquist, "Regeneration theory", Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 11, pp. 126–147, 1932
- ↑ Nyquist, Harry. "Certain factors affecting telegraph speed". Bell System Technical Journal, 3, 324–346, 1924
- ↑ Nyquist, Harry. "Certain topics in telegraph transmission theory", Trans. AIEE, vol. 47, pp. 617–644, Apr. 1928 Reprint as classic paper in: Proc. IEEE, Vol. 90, No. 2, Feb 2002.
- Pages with reference errors
- Articles with dead external links from February 2012
- 1889 births
- 1976 deaths
- People from Kil Municipality
- American engineers
- American electrical engineers
- AT&T
- Control theorists
- IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
- American information theorists
- Information theory
- Scientists at Bell Labs
- American people of Swedish descent
- University of North Dakota alumni
- Yale University alumni
- Swedish emigrants to the United States
- Swedish information theorists
- Swedish engineers
- People from Pharr, Texas
