Interview with Harald T. Friis, 17 February 1965
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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.
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Kestenbaum
February 17th. This is Ray Kestenbaum. I'm at the home of Mr. Harald T. Friis, the former director of research and radio and electronics at the Holmdel and Murray Hill Laboratories. Mr. Friis, for how long a period were you Jansky's supervisor?
Friis
Well, all of the years Jansky was in the Bell Laboratories.
Kestenbaum
And how many years is that approximately?
Friis
Started 1928 and ended at his death in 1940 - is it '49?
Kestenbaum
He died at the age of 44. I think it was 1950 was it? '49?
Friis
I think '49.
Kestenbaum
Was this all at the Holmdel Laboratory?
Friis
All at the Holmdel Laboratory. No, pardon me. Karl Jansky started with me down at the Cliffwood Laboratory.
Kestenbaum
What year was this?
Friis
'28.
Kestenbaum
'28.
Friis
And in 1930 he moved to the Holmdel Laboratory.
Kestenbaum
I see. There were two outstanding Laboratories in those days, Cliffwood and Deal.
Friis
There was the Cliffwood and the Deal Laboratories. And then they closed the Cliffwood and moved to the big Holmdel Laboratory.
Kestenbaum
I see. What did you think of Karl Jansky professionally? That is, did you think of him as a good engineer? Was he - ?
Friis
An extremely good engineer.
Kestenbaum
Was he dedicated to science, to his work?
Friis
Dedicated to his work, very competent, and very nice and pleasant fellow.
Kestenbaum
Understand he considered himself as a physicist rather an engineer?
Friis
I don't know. I think his father was a physicist. And maybe he did consider himself as a physicist. I don't know whether you know the trouble he had getting into the Bell Lab.
Kestenbaum
No, I don't. Would you tell us about that?
Friis
The medical department rejected him because of a chronic ailment. But then, his brother, a well-known radio engineer in Washington, M.J. Jansky.
Kestenbaum
Cyril, is that?
Friis
No. I think it's J.M. Jansky [actually C.M. Jansky]. He talked with the president of the company and asked him whether his brother couldn't get a job out in the country where he wouldn't have to work too hard. And the president agreed to that. And then he was placed down at my Laboratory at Cliffwood, New Jersey.
Kestenbaum
Did he get along well with his co-workers? What does the people think of him?
Friis
He got along extremely well with all his co-workers.
Kestenbaum
Coming back to his work Mr. Friis, when he was assigned the project on measuring static, what was he expected to accomplish in this work?
Friis
He was expected to find out what is the level - what is the level of static noise. How bad is it? How much power do we need to know what transmitter? I mean, this is the same in all communication circuits. There was no - the signal-to-noise ratio for it to get a good signal. The idea was to measure how much noise have we got and on what directions does it come.
Kestenbaum
And what type of noise.
Friis
And what type of noise.
Kestenbaum
Source of the noise.
Kestenbaum
0When he came across his discovery of the extragalactic source - the Milky Way noise, how did you feel about his discovery at that time? In other words, when he pinpointed it to a certain direction in the Universe and it was known at that time that it's not of terrestrial source, how did you feel about?
Friis
We, and all my workers, felt that it was a wonderful contribution. And I still feel so. And I also feel that it was a contribution worth the Nobel Prize. If the Nobel Prize committee at that time had realized the importance of it, then he would probably have got it.
Kestenbaum
You think that a Nobel Prize was due to Karl Janksy for the work he did on this?
Friis
04:55 Yes.
Kestenbaum
What about the publicity on this? You know the New York Times had this on page one. And Karl Jansky was given an interview on WJZ at the time. Or was management happy at the time?
Friis
Yes. I think Holmdel publicity department did a wonderful job.
Kestenbaum
Did Karl Jansky show a deep interest in the subject of radio astronomy, the thing that he discovered?
Friis
He certainly did.
Kestenbaum
Then actually now, he discontinue this work. And what I want to know here is why did he discontinue pursuing studies in radio astronomy, something which was deemed so important?
Friis
It was deemed important later, not at that time. We were very happy to get the ultimate-- the level, the lowest noise we could expect to get at that time. And Jansky continued working with noise. He didn't stop. Noise studies, you know, at the time that he had detected star noise.
Kestenbaum
Did you feel at that time when he discovered the noise coming from the Milky Way that it was a very important subject, so something out of the unusual, it was more important than a study of static? Or did you feel that he should continue studying the problems in static?
Friis
I felt at that time that he had finished the job of studying static. I myself had been interested in static since 1919. I got my first introduction to static work way back in '21 for instance when I visited with Professor Wilson at Cambridge University in England and talked about static with Professor, now Professor Appleton at Cambridge too. And I continued being interested there in static. I made a static recorder. I made a receiving set that was very sensitive, the most sensitive receiving set you had at that time. That was in '28. And so when Jansky joined us and I talked with him what job would he liked, he gladly accepted my idea or my suggestion that he should work at the static. And -
Kestenbaum
He volunteered for that. He wanted that job.
Friis
He wanted it. There was no disagreement whatsoever. He liked it. And on the other hand, we must remember that he had trouble with his ailment. I was told to go very easy on Jansky. And I did. And he mustn't exert himself too much. Things like that. But as a matter of fact, might interest you that I became very close to Jansky and his family.
Kestenbaum
Personally.
Friis
Personally. My wife and I became close friends. We saw each other socially all the time in coming to dinner and things. And we got so close that my wife was asked to be godmother to the little girl they've got.
Kestenbaum
Let me ask you this, Mr. Friis, would Jansky have continued with the subject of radio astronomy if he had not been requested to stop this? Now this question is predicated on the fact that management did ask him to stop, discontinue his work in radio astronomy. Is this a fact? Is this true?
Friis
Fact is, management never asked him to stop work on radio astronomy.
Kestenbaum
Would you explain that point? Actually why did he stop and under what conditions did he stop?
Friis
He stopped because he had done a wonderful job and felt that his contribution was seen as so big. And time, wasn't a fight to continue the work. That is, the technique of having receiving sets that would detect this static, this noise wasn't good enough yet. You had to wait until you had better receivers to continue doing work at shorter wavelengths.
Kestenbaum
In other words, he had the interest in radio astronomy. He did discover this single isolated source coming from the Milky Way. He did want to continue this type of work. But he felt the technology wasn't up to date yet to do this.
Friis
I think this is a true statement of the situation.
Kestenbaum
Did he ever, in his career, subsequently express an interest in continuing the study of radio astronomy?
Friis
When later Mr. Reber, you have probably heard about -
Kestenbaum
Grote Reber.
Friis
Grote Reber also detected star noise at a longer wavelength. I think it was-- at a shorter wavelength. Jansky got his star noise around 15-meter wavelength. Reber got his noise at 2-meter wavelengths. And when Jansky heard about that, he was very happy. And so this is wonderful that somebody else now, five years after I detected a noise at 15 meters, and somebody else now has detected it at 2 meters and confirmed my findings.
Kestenbaum
I see. So in that sense, Grote Reber was the only one immediately after Jansky who was working on radio astronomy. And when Grote Reber came up with his results, Jansky did express an interest in Reber's results.
Friis
Generally.
Kestenbaum
Did he express a desire to continue this work in the Laboratory? Do you recall what he did?
Friis
I do not recall that he did. I don't know whether you have yet talked with John Schelleng. Once I called a conversation with Jansky about Reber's work. And John Schelleng asked Jansky, "Don't you feel badly about not having done this?" Jansky answered, "No. I skim the cream." See, don't forget that Jansky, at that time, was doing other important work. He was doing work on how can you make really good receivers. And he measured reflections, radar reflections and things like that. And during the war, he went into some secret work, some Navy job, some direction finding work.
Kestenbaum
In other words, I get the impression from you Mr. Friis that Jansky - he was doing work in static. And then he came across this radio astronomy thing. And at the time, he thought this was fine. This was wonderful. But the importance of it really came to bear later, in many years later. Is this what you're saying?
Friis
That's what I'm saying.
Kestenbaum
And he didn't consider radio astronomy any more important than his work on static?
Friis
Right.
Kestenbaum
So the fact that he discontinued working on radio astronomy just meant he shifted his emphasis back into the work he was doing traditionally, which is static, with measurements in static.
Friis
Yes, and noise.
Kestenbaum
So it's not true to say that anyone asked him to stop.
Friis
No. Nobody ever asked him to stop. Yeah.
Kestenbaum
Are you -
Friis
He had a free hand.
Kestenbaum
Yes. Are you familiar, Mr. Friis, with John Pfeiffer's book, The Changing Universe?
Friis
Yes.
Kestenbaum
I guess you read this.
Friis
Yes. I read it.
Kestenbaum
You know what he mentioned about - ?
Friis
Yes.
Kestenbaum
Where would Mr. Pfeiffer have received this information?
Friis
Well, Mr. Pfeiffer visited us. I distinctly remember his visit down at Holmdel. And I got all the people together in my office that knew Jansky well. I think Mr. Pfeiffer's visit was '54, something like that. And he asked us about - and most of the statements that Mr. Pfeiffer has made in the book are true.
Kestenbaum
Even the one which he'd -
Friis
Somewhere there where he mentioned what he got from his family, I don't consider true.
Kestenbaum
Particularly would you say the statement when he said that Bell Laboratory did not permit him to continue this work?
Friis
That was definitely not true.
Kestenbaum
That's false.
Friis
That's false.
Kestenbaum
Where do you think he got that misinformation? What would be the first - ?
Friis
Well, the way I look at it, this is here Jansky's discovery. This wonderful discovery became extremely important 20 years after he did it. And evidently his family was starting to think, "Say, why wasn't Karl Jansky in on this? No more in on this. Why didn't he contribute more? There must have been something there that the Bell people wouldn't let him do things." And that was not true. It was just the facts are that the radio astronomy now are based on microwave technique. Microwave technique that was developed during the Second World War. And that didn't exist when Jansky worked in his first experiment. You had to wait there for the techniques. You had to wait for big antennas to be available and used to [inaudible] microwave receiving sets to be available in order to do things. Another thing that Reber, not Reber, that Pfeiffer mentioned in his book is that Jansky wanted a big paraboloid -
Kestenbaum
Dish antenna.
Friis
- dish antenna. And that management would not approve of that. This is all fiction. Big paraboloids didn't exist at those times. Nobody ever thought of it. Nobody would ever. It's just something 20 years after that Pfeiffer said - he must just have invented it.
Kestenbaum
Did you meet Pfeiffer?
Friis
I met him at that time. Unfortunately - .
Kestenbaum
The draft before -
Friis
Before he published his book.
Kestenbaum
Mr. Friis, would you consider by and large a copy of the original documentation of "Early History of Radio Astronomy" by G.C. Southworth [Scientific Monthly, v. 82, 1956], would you consider this more or less an accurate account?
Friis
Yes. They've got straight an accurate account of Jansky's work. I would like to get back to this other thing mentioned in Pfeiffer's book. I shall read it. [silence] Yes. Mr. Pfeiffer mentioned that letter written in the spring of '36, "At that time, Jansky wanted to leave his position. He thought of working at the State University of Iowa but only if he was given freedom to go ahead with his studies in radio astronomy."
Kestenbaum
You're quoting now from the book.
Friis
I'm quoting from the book, yes. Pfeiffer mentioned that there was something very special. And though he was dissatisfied working at the Bell Lab, that wasn't so, "All my boys, all my good boys, they always talked about, shouldn't we go to university and work? Wouldn't it be nicer to work at a university than working at the Bell Lab?" I consider this thing here just very natural. The boys that talked about, should we go to university. Matter of fact, several of my boys left for university work.
Kestenbaum
The fact that there was a Depression at that time, did that mean that equipment was scarce to obtain? I mean, if he would've put in a request for something expensive, it could possibly be turned down because of the - ?
Friis
I'm sure that Karl Jansky realized that if he had joined Ohio - oh, he was -
Kestenbaum
University of Iowa.
Friis
University of Iowa. He realized that he would not have been able to get the support for work on radio astronomy.
Kestenbaum
At the University?
Friis
At the University.
Kestenbaum
Please continue.
Friis
Well, that's the main thing. Yeah. It just those three points mentioned in there -
Kestenbaum
I see.
Friis
And to that I cannot - it's very difficult because I haven't seen those letters that Pfeiffer said he saw, you see. I know that Jansky's father, he was professor, Wisconsin.
Kestenbaum
In what field?
Friis
In physics.
Kestenbaum
In physics.
Friis
He visited us at Holmdel. As far as I recall, several times he would visit his boy and then he would come out to visit. He never made any remarks about that Jansky didn't have enough support for his work.
Kestenbaum
Is there anything else you want to add about Jansky, perhaps something about his personality? Any outstanding thing which might have been in conflict or - you did mention his relations with his co-workers were excellent. And everybody got along with him.
Friis
He was not aggressive.
Kestenbaum
He was not aggressive.
Friis
No. Jansky was certainly not aggressive. He was not like lots of other people. He was not like his brother. His brother in Washington, C.M. Jansky. He is a very aggressive - had built up a good business there on radio measurements, radio measurements and things. And is a very aggressive - a big, big fellow. Jansky was a little fellow and not aggressive at all.
Kestenbaum
And he was interested in radio. He was an expert in radio measurement.
Friis
Right.
Kestenbaum
And he was in the area that he wanted to do, whether it was static or radio astronomy. This was his area.
Friis
Yes.
Kestenbaum
And this is what he wanted to do.
Friis
Yeah.
Kestenbaum
Well, that's about all the questions I have, Mr. Friis, unless you can think of anything else you want to say in connection with historical aspects of Jansky. I'd like to bring out some fine points as to why for example, how did he get into this job in the first place? Why wasn't he put on to different jobs in West Street? Was it - ?
Friis
No.
Kestenbaum
You mentioned it was his health that put him out there.
Friis
It was his health. It was his health. He thought that being out in the country, that would be just right.
Kestenbaum
Yes.
Friis
Kind of right for him. And it was.
Kestenbaum
Yes. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Friis.