Herbert E. Ives

Herbert Eugene Ives

Ives circa 1913
Born July 21, 1882
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died November 13, 1953(1953-11-13) (aged 71)
Upper Montclair, New Jersey
Education University of Pennsylvania
Spouse(s) Mabel Lorenz (m. 1908)
Children Barbara Ives Beyer
Kenneth Ives
Ronald Ives
Parent(s) Frederic Eugene Ives
Mary Olmstead

Engineering career

Significant projects facsimile
videotelephony
television
Significant awards Edward Longstreth Medal (1907, 1915 and 1919)
Frederic Ives Medal (1937)
Medal for Merit (1948)

Herbert Eugene Ives (July 21, 1882 – November 13, 1953) was a scientist and engineer who headed the development of facsimile and television systems at AT&T in the first half of the twentieth century.[1] He is best known for the 1938 Ives–Stilwell experiment, which provided direct confirmation of special relativity's time dilation.,[2] although Ives himself did not accept special relativity, and argued instead for an alternative interpretation of the experimental results.[3]

Biography

He was born on July 21, 1882 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Frederic Eugene Ives and Mary Olmstead. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and the Johns Hopkins University, where he graduated in 1908. He married Mabel Lorenz in the same year and they had three children.

He wrote a 1920 book on aerial photography, while an Army reserve officer, in the aviation section.[4] Ives was also an avid coin collector, and becoming president of the American Numismatic Society. He additionally became president of the Optical Society of America from 1924 to 1925.[5] At the Bell Labs he became its Director of Electro-Optical Research.[6]

Like his father Frederic Eugene Ives, Herbert was an expert on color photography. In 1924, he transmitted and reconstructed the first color facsimile, using color separations. In 1927, he demonstrated 185-line long-distance television, transmitting the live video images of then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover via AT&T's experimental station 3XN in Whippany, New Jersey, allowing media reporters to both see and communicate with Hoover.[7]

By 1930, his two-way television-telephone system (called an ikonophone —Greek: 'image-sound' ) was in regular experimental use.[8][9] Bell Labs' large New York City research facility devoted years of research and development through the 1930s, led by Dr. Ives with his team of more than 200 scientists, engineers and technicians. Bell Labs intended to develop videotelephony and television for both telecommunications and broadcast entertainment purposes.[10] Ongoing research into combined audio and video telephones was extended by Bell Labs far past Ives' tenure at a cost of over US$500 million, eventually resulting in the deployment of AT&T's futuristic Picturephone.[11]

Following the philosophy of Hendrik Lorentz, he attempted to demonstrate the physical reality of relativistic effects by means of logical arguments and experiments. He is best known for conducting the Ives–Stilwell experiment,[12] which provided direct confirmation of special relativity's time dilation. However, Ives himself regarded his experiment as a proof of the existence of the ether and hence, as he erroneously suggested, a disproof of the theory of relativity.[13] He was discouraged by the reaction of the scientific community that had interpreted his experiment in the way opposite to his expectations.

He then turned to the theory and published a set of articles,[14][15][16][17] where he described relativistic phenomena in terms of a single system of coordinates, which he mistakenly thought would disprove relativity.[18] This paradoxical aspect of Ives's work was described by his friend, the noted physicist H. P. Robertson, who contributed the following summary of Ives's attitude toward special relativity in a biography of Ives:

"Ives' work in the basic optical field presents a rather curious anomaly, for although he considered that it disproved the special theory of relativity, the fact is that his experimental work offers one of the most valuable supports for this theory, and his numerous theoretical investigations are quite consistent with it ... his deductions were in fact valid, but his conclusions were only superficially in contradiction with the relativity theory—their intricacy and formidable appearance were due entirely to Ives' insistence on maintaining an aether framework and mode of expression. I ... was never able to convince him that since what he had was in fact indistinguishable in its predictions from the relativity theory within the domain of physics, it was in fact the same theory... "

Ives died on November 13, 1953 in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.[1]

Awards and honors

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Dr. Herbert Ives, Pioneer In TV, Dies. Researcher on Electron-Optics Developed 3-D Photography, Wirephoto Transmission". New York Times. November 15, 1953. Retrieved 2014-01-08.
  2. ↑ Robertson, H. P. (1949). "Postulate versus Observation in the Special Theory of Relativity". Reviews of Modern Physics 21 (3): 378–382. Bibcode:1949RvMP...21..378R. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.21.378.
  3. ↑ Halliday and Resnick, "Physics", p 931, 3rd edition, 1978, John Wiley & Sons
  4. ↑ Herbert E. Ives, Airplane Photography, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1920.
  5. ↑ "Past Presidents of the Optical Society of America". Optical Society of America.
  6. ↑ Contributors To This Issue in Bell Labs Quarterly, April 1932, Vol. 11, p. 78.
  7. ↑ "Radio Board Tests Television Process. Finds Demonstration Satisfactory and Will Keep Top Air Band for It". New York Times. April 28, 1927. Retrieved 2014-01-11. A demonstration of television was given here today for the benefit of Admiral Bullard and the other members of the Radio Commission by Dr. Herbert E. Ives, inventor of an American process, and Dr. Frank B. Jewett, Vice President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. ...
  8. ↑ D.N. Carson. "The Evolution of Picturephone Service", Bell Laboratories Record, Bell Labs, October 1968, pp.282-291.
  9. ↑ "Washington Hails The Test: Operator There Puts Through the Calls as Scientists Watch". New York Times. April 8, 1927. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
  10. ↑ Herbert E. Ives, BairdTelevision.com website. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
  11. ↑ Videophone Encyclopædia Britannica, retrieved April 13, 2009 from Encyclopædia Britannica Online;
  12. ↑ H.E.Ives, G.R.Stilwell, An experimental study of the rate of a moving atomic clock, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 28, Iss. 7, pp. 215–226 (1938).
  13. ↑ "Einstein Hails 'Proof'. Dr. Ives Provides Best Support for Relativity, He Says". New York Times. April 27, 1938. Retrieved 2014-01-08. The experiment of Dr. Herbert E. Ives of the Bell Telephone Laboratories with an 'atomic clock' which verifies the existence of ether in space is the most direct proof yet brought forth in support of the theory of relativity, Dr. Albert Einstein declared tonight. In an interview at his home, 12 Mercer Street, he said ...
  14. ↑ H.E.Ives, Historical note on the rate of moving atomic clock, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 37, Iss. 10, pp. 810–813 (1947).
  15. ↑ H.E.Ives, The measurement of the velocity of light by signals sent in one direction, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 38, Iss. 10, 879–884 (1948).
  16. ↑ H.E.Ives, Lorentz-type transformations as derived from performable rod and clock operations, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 39, Iss. 9, pp. 757–761 (1949).
  17. ↑ H.E.Ives, Extrapolation from Michelson-Morley experiment, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. 40, Iss. 4, pp. 185–191 (1950).
  18. ↑ "Anti-Relativity in Action: The Scientific Activity of Herbert E. Ives between 1937 and 1953", Roberto Lalli, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 43, No. 1 (February 2013), pp. 41-104, University of California Press
  19. ↑ "Franklin Laureate Database - Edward Longstreth Medals for Herbert E. Ives". Franklin Institute. Retrieved November 16, 2011.
  20. ↑ Frederic Ives Medal / Quinn Prize, website of The Optical Society (formerly Optical Society of America, OSA). Retrieved August 17, 2011.
  21. ↑ "Pay Honor to Frederic E. Ives". New York Times. July 23, 1937. Retrieved 2014-01-11. The memory of Frederic Eugene Ives, inventor of half-tone processes used in ... Herbert E. Ives, son of the inventor, presented to the institute the original patent ...
  22. ↑ Dean Turner and Richard Hazelett, eds., The Einstein Myth and the Ives Papers: A Counter-Revolution in Physics, Pasadena: Hope Publishing (1979).

External links

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