Interview with John C. Schelleng, 17 February 1965
Description
Creator
Rights
Type
Identifier
Interviewer
Interviewee
Duration
Start Date
Notes
Please bear in mind that: 1) This material is a transcript of the spoken word rather than a literary product; 2) An interview must be read with the awareness that different people's memories about an event will often differ, and that memories can change with time for many reasons including subsequent experiences, interactions with others, and one's feelings about an event.
Series
Transcription
Kestenbaum
The foregoing interview was conducted at Mr. Friis's home in Rumson, New Jersey. Mr. Friis continues and he says that - he iterates that Jansky technical competence lay more in his ability to measure and observe phenomenon than it does in designing electronic equipment. He says that Jansky was a very mild fellow, not too aggressive. The fact that the studies in radio astronomy required advanced equipment, the type not yet built and where the state-of-the-art was not up to date yet, may have possibly deterred him from insisting to continue on his work in radio astronomy Mr. Friis continues and he says that Jansky was neither discouraged nor encouraged to continue in his field. Nobody at that time felt that radio astronomy was a field of overwhelming importance. This factor came to the surface many years later. I believe this is somewhat documented in a letter by - this apparently seems to be the view of Mr. John C. Schelleng, formerly director of radio research at Holmdel and whose home I am at the present time in Interlaken, New Jersey.
Mr. Schelling writes a letter dated October 16th, 1956 to the editor of Science. It concerns the review of John Pfeiffer's book The Changing Universe.
The letter reads as follows. Mr. Schilling writes as follows, "Your issue of September 21st, 1956 contained a review of an interesting book The Changing Universe by John Pfeiffer. The book raises a question why Karl Jansky after discovering extraterrestrial noise at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, stopped his work 'at the very point where it was beginning to get exciting.' The author, it seems, is trying to be factual and to present both sides of his question. On the other hand, your reviewer, Frank K. Edmondson, an astronomer, does not hesitate by implication to pass judgment. Speaking of Jansky's 'failure to secure support for continued pure research at Bell Laboratories.' His statement that 'industry has developed a more enlightened attitude toward pure research during the past 25 years' is harmless in quotation but in context not as innocent as it looks. It is news to Mr. Jansky's associate at Holmdel to be told that he tried seriously to continue the work and failed. If he made such an attempt, the effort was without forcefulness and it is the consensus of his fellow workers that he showed no sense of frustration. I remember a conversation with him shortly after reading a Grote Reber paper describing his first mapping of the Milky Way. Greatly impressed by Reber's single-handed and successful effort, I remarked that it was too bad that Karl was not himself working in the field. To this, he replied cheerfully that, after all, he had skimmed the cream. There was no sign of disappointment.
"It is therefore thoughtless, to say the least, to refer to 'his failure to secure support for continued pure research.' If astronomers had been knocking at the Laboratories door requesting cooperation and had been refused, there might well be ground for criticism of an organization which would permit a pioneer to stop 'at the very point where it was beginning to get exciting.' If the astronomers showed any excitement at the time we saw no sign of it. As the years passed it became painfully evident that they did not even believe in radio noise from the center of the galaxy. The Bell Telephone Laboratories provided the environment and support which made this discovery possible. It cooperated in communicating it to the scientific world. All interested in the advance of science became free to enter the important new field if they recognized it as such. If confirmation was needed it could best be done by others since the possibilities of available apparatus were exhausted by Jansky's three papers. Knowing what we know today, it is easy to forget the actual situation in 1933. If it was so obvious that this was to be an important branch of astronomy that as the reviewer says, 'The division between radio astronomy and optical astronomy is an artificial division,' why did it take so many years for the world of astronomy to become aware of the fact? Newcomers can exercise what W. O. Baker has called 'the exquisite precision of hindsight.' It is entirely possible - it must be admitted that decisions made 20 years ago might have been quite different if a crystal ball had been at hand. Signed, J.C. Schelleng."
Mr. Schelleng, was this letter ever sent?
Schelleng
Yeah. No, I mean, write it here. Fine. Is it on? Yes, it was sent and there was correspondence between the editor, I've forgotten his name, and myself. At first, he was very reluctant to accept it. Then I wrote a letter and he finally did accept it. Wait. What was the question?
Kestenbaum
Yes, the question was if you ever sent it and if it was published? If the letter was published?
Schelleng
Finally, he did accept it and -
Kestenbaum
That's the editor of the -
Schelleng
Finally, the editor accepted the thing for a publication and it was, actually, I believe, scheduled. Unfortunately, I had some afterthoughts on this. I'm sorry now that I did discontinue - I mean, I asked that the thing be withdrawn and that was at my own request.
Kestenbaum
So you asked the editor of Science to withdraw the letter?
Schelleng
I did. I did. Yes. [crosstalk].
Kestenbaum
Do you recall the reason for this?
Schelleng
What's that?
Kestenbaum
Do you know the reason for this?
Schelleng
Well, I think there were various reasons. For one thing, I think the tone of the letter struck me perhaps as sarcastic a bit and I don't like - I have a feeling that sarcasm is bad. Also, I asked George Southworth to whom I had sent a copy of the letter what he thought about it. And he was quite strong in the opinion that it should not be sent, that it would do more harm than good. I think that, myself, right now, that it is unfortunate. By the way, before I talked with Friis about it and I told him that I wanted to withdraw it and asked him if he objected. And at the time - and I understood that he did not object to it. But apparently, there was a misunderstanding between us and I don't know just how it happened.
Kestenbaum
Wasn't he the one that originally asked you or requested you to draft this letter?
Schelleng
Oh, no. No, no. He didn't. Well, the drafting, it was at my initiative.
Schelleng
It was your initiative?
Schelleng
It was my initiative. Yes. The drafting was at my initiative. He saw it and liked it. Later, when I found that Friis and I had not understood each other, I felt very bad about having withdrawn this letter but it was then too late.
Kestenbaum
Let's get on to an interesting point, Mr. Schelleng. I'd like to know what the significance of 20 megacycles, that is 14 meters is. In Jansky's work, his job was to find out various static coming from various causes and various directions. What was so important about one particular frequency or one narrow band of frequencies? Isn't there noise generated in other frequencies?
Schelleng
Well, this high-frequency range that he was working in was one that was very important for our Transatlantic short wave or rather high-frequency communications. At lower frequencies that I think you just indicated, static does become worse. If you go to higher frequencies it is not as serious, at least, a good deal of the time as is the low frequencies because of what's known as the skip phenomena. If you go considerably higher than that why the noise from distant sources does not come in the way it does at low frequency just because the ionosphere is insufficiently ionized to hold it down. [2019 note by Kellermann: This argument is incorrect.]
Kestenbaum
I see. I guess what I had in my mind was the magic number of 21 centimeters. This is the fundamental frequency a hydrogen emits and that is the radio astronomy frequency, the celebrated one.
Schelleng
Oh, yeah. But that's quite different, of course. That 21 centimeters is - well, I think fourteen hundred and some odd kilocycles [2019 note by Kellermann: MHz] - a very much higher frequency.
Kestenbaum
Did he experiment with that frequency? Jansky?
Schelleng
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Kestenbaum
He didn't touch that?
Schelleng
No.
Kestenbaum
You know who the first one was that did that work? Was it Reber?
Schelleng
Reber was certainly the first one who did anything of importance in radio astronomy at that frequency. [2019 note by Kellermann: Not correct. Reber never observed at 21 cm.] Matter of fact, when Jansky was working - I found that my recollections are - right. There was very little apparatus that could have been used in that field by Jansky. There were new tubes being developed all the time. I mean, as time went on the frequency and limit of frequencies at which vacuum tubes could operate was going up and up. And at the time when Jansky experimented, I believe that there were some small tubes. There were some small tubes either in existence then or about to become into existence for the Laboratories. There were also some small tubes put out by the Radio Corporation called, as I recall, shoe button tubes or something of that sort. [2019 note by Kellermann: acorn tubes] Which, by the way, I think were the tubes which Reber actually used at a later time. But don't get confused between this 20 megacycles and the 21.
Kestenbaum
Yes. It's an important point because if this is a radio frequency - if it is a radio astronomy frequency, it would have shown - it would have proved that Jansky had built this thing primarily to detect radio noise. But you say this frequency is connected with a transatlantic circuit.
Schelleng
Yeah. That's right.
Kestenbaum
So he was asked to build this antenna at this frequency - build equipment for a measurement of static [crosstalk] problem of the transatlantic telephone?
Schelleng
Because [crosstalk] existing communications. So you see, the difference is the ratio of the 21 megacycles is going from that to fourteen hundred megacycles which is the frequency corresponding to the 21 centimeter. It's a ratio of 71. It's a tremendous range you see.
Kestenbaum
Yes. Yes. Mr. Schelleng, what was your connection at that time with the work of Jansky?
Schelleng
None whatever. And I would like to make that clear that in writing this letter I was not in any sense writing it as one of the persons who might could claim credit. I deserve no credit whatever nor had no connection whatever except as an interested bystander in the work that was going on there.
Kestenbaum
This morning Mr. Friis mentioned that he thought that Jansky is deservent of a Nobel Prize for this work he did. Do you feel the same way? Or is that -
Schelleng
hat's a very difficult question for me. I think that these discoveries -
Kestenbaum
Well, do you think that - well, undoubtedly you think it was an important discovery. Everybody does.
Schelleng
Oh, it was important and, of course -
Kestenbaum
At the time, when it was discovered, how did you feel about it?
Schelleng
Well, I felt, of course, it was tremendously interesting. I think I felt just a little bit of skepticism about it.
Kestenbaum
You did?
Schelleng
I think so. I mean, in the first stages of it.
Kestenbaum
Was this shared by your colleagues at the time?
Schelleng
I wouldn't say so. I don't know. I think maybe it's just my -
Kestenbaum
Did Jansky ever talk to you - do you ever detect Jansky's excitement about this field and him wanting to work in radio astronomy more than he did in more conventional static problems? In other words, was he very enthusiastic about radio astronomy when he discovered it and did he want to continue this work?
Schelleng
Well, the only thing that I recall now is the conversation which I mentioned in that letter that you read. I would say that I have - I did not have enough conversations with him before that time to base any opinion on it.
Kestenbaum
I see. You don't know whether he wanted to continue his work or whether he didn't want to continue the work.
Schelleng
No. I don't know.
Kestenbaum
Were you close with him personally?
Schelleng
No. Well, I was located - let's see, that was in '54 - '33 I mean, '33 or '34. I was at Deal at the time. I was 10 miles away, and he was at Holmdel. And he reported in one - he was in one department and I was in another. Friis was in charge of the work which came out of the research work on the receivers, and I was at Deal working out transmitters and transmission and transmitting antennas. But there was a sort of a - while closely related, while we both reported the same man in New York, there was just friendly - a lot of very good friendly cooperation but our work was with others, slightly different.
Kestenbaum
Jansky personally, was he an easygoing man? Did he get along well with his colleagues?
Schelleng
Oh, yes. Yes. He was well liked, I think.
Kestenbaum
You wouldn't call him an aggressive fellow in other words?
Schelleng
Oh, no.
Kestenbaum
Someone that has an idea in his mind and wants to pursue it and badgers his boss about it.
Schelleng
No. I would say he was rather easygoing and easygoing in a nice way. And this partly, of course, was due to the fact of his illness. I think what he did in the face of his illness was quite remarkable. I mean, his attitude was what you might call heroic I suppose. He had an incurable illness, of course, he finally died of it. And this was with him all the time. He had it under control but it was something for which he deserved a lot of credit.
Kestenbaum
Mr. Schelleng, during the time when you worked there, did you ever feel that if you approached management with a request for equipment that you would be denied this? What I'm trying to establish here is a possibility of Jansky wanting to continue his work and yet being denied equipment for it. I'm trying to establish whether the atmosphere was such that other scientists and engineers in similar situations would make a request to their bosses and their efforts would be thwarted because of a very purposeful kind of development and research which was conducted. For example, have you ever approached management with a request for equipment and has this ever been denied you?
Schelleng
Oh, yes. I don't think it would be good management if it weren't. After all, someone has to make the decisions and I don't see how the Bell Telephone Laboratories can be a Croesus for providing funds for anything whatever that the engineers might - that scientists might want to do. I think either thing could happen. The real point is what did happen in this case and -
Kestenbaum
Do you think that it's very possible that management was so interested in solving a static problem that they would have thwarted any efforts on the part of pure research people to satisfy their curiosity such as this case over here? Let me rephrase that question again. Do you think that the problem of static and the particular job at hand was so important that even the discovery of extraterrestrial noise played of little importance in the minds of management at that time? Or wouldn't have management indeed been delighted if someone were willing to pursue his interests in pure research rather than solving an immediate problem? I want to find out the atmosphere, the feeling of the atmosphere, the climate of management at that time. Of course, today there's a lot of pure research going on. But I don't know what happened in Holmdel in 1930, '31, '32.
Schelleng
Well, I can assure you that if management had any of this gift of foresight, had been able to see the future, had been able to see what the importance of this discovery really was going to be, you wouldn't have been able to hold them down. They would have given everything that was needed to do it. But it is so easy to talk now of radio astronomy as though - which is a term, by the way, which was coined years and years later. Back in the days when the astronomers didn't even believe in this stuff. How could you expect - how could anyone expect non-scientific management to see the scientific consequences of a discovery if the people who were most at home in the field turn up their nose at it?
Kestenbaum
Also the fact that you were living through a Depression and there was a Depression and it was a matter of dollars and cents that certain circuitry problems - [recording ends abruptly]