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FREDERICK EMl~ONS TERMAN
1900-1982
JOSEPH M. PETTIT
FREDERICK EMMONS TERMAN, one of the twenty-five founders of
the National Academy of Engineering, died at Stanford University
on December 19, 1982, at the age of eighty-two. He will long be
remembered as one of the outstanding teachers, textbook authors,
and educational leaders of his generation. His organizational leader-
ship left a permanent mark on the history of Stanford University and
its surrounding industrial complex.
Frederick Terman was born on June 7, 1900, in English, Indiana,
but moved with his family in 1910 to the Stanford University cam-
pus where his father, Lewis M. Terman, became Professor and Head
of the Psychology Department. His father was coauthor of the Stan-
ford-Binet IQ test, a landmark in educational testing. Both father
and son were to become famous, and both were elected to the
National Academy of Sciences.
Frederick Terman entered Stanford and graduated in 1920 in
industrial chemistry. In his graduate work he shifted to electrical
engineering, receiving the degree of Engineer at Stanford in 1922.
He continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy, where he received his doctorate in 1924 under Vannevar Bush.
He became an instructor at Stanford in 1925, and except for a
leave of absence during World War II, his career at Stanford was
continuous until his retirement in 1965. He advanced through the
ranks in electrical engineering, becoming Professor and Head of the
department in 1937. He went on leave in 1942 to head the Radio
273
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274
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Research Laboratory at Harvard University, a wartime research
and development laboratory that specialized in radar countermea-
sures and had a staff of more than 800 persons. The work at this
laboratory had great significance in the detection, analysis, and jam-
ming of German and Japanese radar. Dr. Terman was decorated by
the British Government and by our own, receiving our Presidential
Medal of Merit in 1948.
After World War II Dr. Terman returned to Stanford as Dean of
the School of Engineering, a position he held until 1958. Stanford
appointed him to the post of Provost in 1955 and in 1959 added the
title of Vice-President.
Dr. Terman's early fame came through his textbook, Radio Erlgi-
neering, first published in 1932; there were four editions of the book,
which became the bible of the profession. Its success was due to a
blend of conventional radio theory and advanced electric circuit
analysis that Dr. Terman learned from Vannevar Bush. His tech-
nique for updating this book was interesting. He subscribed to about
five journals and religiously scanned every article, preparing an
abstract on a file card for each one. These he cataloged according to
the chapters of his book. In later editions of the book, he called in
several of his younger colleagues, including this writer, to take over
certain of the newer fields. The book finally had to be set to rest
because radio engineering as a field melted into the broader land-
scape of electronics.
He was a diligent writer, and when his younger colleagues had
trouble producing intended books, he would advise them to write
one page a day that way one would have a 365-page book at the
end of the year. He was so disciplined that he did produce something
on each day of the year.
Dr. Terman certainly qualified as a leading educator, although one
would have to say that he was not a good lecturer he was warm,
but shy, and no orator. But he believed in learning, and his students
were obliged to learn as he drilled each class in the contents of hi
book. He had good contacts with industry, and he brought various of
his engineer friends in industry into his classes to have them narrate
new developments in which they were involved.
Perhaps his best contribution to education was institution building
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FREDERICK EMMONS TERMAN
275
at Stanford University. He had the highest standards for new faculty,
and participated in building up Stanford University from a good
regional institution to one of distinction. He advocated the "steeples
of excellence" theory, saying that a city skyline is noted for its high
steeples rather than for the average height of all its buildings. He also
urged his "mainstream" theory, saying that even the best university
cannot be outstanding in everything, but that it is important that its
chosen fields lie along the mainstream of intellectual development. A
major contribution was to build up Stanford as a strong research
university. As Gene Bylinsky wrote in Fortune magazine: "While
training a whole generation of scientist-entrepreneurs, Terman had
built up the prestige and quality of Stanford's engineering school to
a level that attracted outstanding graduate students from all over the
country. For more than a decade, Stanford has awarded more
Ph.D.'s in electrical engineering than any other school, including
M.I.T."
Finally, he was recognized in later years as a region builder,
receiving much of the credit for the evolution of "Silicon Valley." He
encouraged Stanford graduates like William Hewlett and David
Packard to start companies in the Palo Alto area. Gene Bylinsky
further wrote in the Fortune article that the concentration of 800
technology companies along the southwestern shore of San Fran-
cisco Bay "has created an innovative ferment on a scale without
precedent in industrial history. No other center of advanced technol-
ogy in the U.S. can match Santa Clara County's performance and
the buildup of creative technology in Santa Clara County was almost
wholly the handiwork of Frederick Terman, an enthusiastic and
inspiring teacher at Stanford. "
Dr. Terman described the ideal relationship, which was achieved
in the Stanford area, as a "modern community of scholars"
whereby, through continuous cooperation and interchange of ideas
between the university and its surrounding industry, an important
intellectual community could arise that would encourage the growth
of industry. He persuaded the university to create the Stanford
Industrial Park, in which many of these firms were ultimately
located.
He was active in national technical societies, including the Ameri-
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276
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
can Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and the Institute of
Radio Engineers (IRE), the two forerunners of the present Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
He was also elected to the top honorary societies. He was elected
to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1946, and helped
found the National Academy of Engineering in 1964. He was Chair-
man of the NAS Engineering Division during 1953-1956 and served
on the NAS Council during 1956-1959. His other honorary mem-
berships included Tau Beta Pi, Phi Beta Kappa, Eta Kappa Nu, and
Sigma Xi. His social fraternity was Theta Xi, and he was a long-
time member of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco.
He served as adviser to the U.S. Government in many important
positions. During World War II he served the National Defense
Research Committee and in Division 14 (Radar) and Division 25
(Electronic Countermeasures) of the Office of Scientific Research
Development. In the important postwar period when the federal role
in research and development was taking form as a continuing
national commitment, he served as an adviser to the Department of
Commerce (1946-1947), in the Department of Defense Special
Technical Advisory Group (1950-1953), and in the Research and
Development Advisory Committee of the U.S. Army Signal Corps
(1954-1962~. He was a member of the Naval Research Advisory
Committee in 1956-1964, serving as Chairman in 1957-1958. He
was a member of the Defense Science Board in 1957-1958. He
served the National Science Foundation as a member of the Advi-
sory Committee for the Division of Mathematical, Physical, and
Engineering Sciences during 1955-1959 and as Chairman during
1958-1959. He served as a consultant to the President's Science
Advisory Committee and was a Trustee of the Institute for Defense
Analysis.
Dr. Terman's honors were many. He received honorary doctor-
ates from Harvard, the University of British Columbia, and Syra-
cuse University. Stanford University, which does not give honorary
degrees, honored him in equivalent ways: the Herbert Hoover
Medal in 1970 and the special designation of "Uncommon Man" in
1979. In 1956 the AIEE awarded him its first Education Medal. The
IRE gave him the Medal of Honor in 1950 and the Founders Award
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FREDERICK EMMONS TERMAN
277
in 1962. The ASEE awarded him the Lamme Medal and elected
him in 1966 to the special grade of Honorary Member. Eta Kappa
Nu made him an Eminent Member in 1951. For his service in
Korea in founding a new graduate school in engineering and sci-
ence, the government gave him the medal of the Order of Civil
Merit in 1975. Finally, in 1976, President Ford conferred upon him
the National Medal of Science.
As this writer can attest, having succeeded Frederick Terman at
Stanford, it can truly be said that he erected a high platform upon
which his successors could stand and from which they could see and
reach farther than had been possible before.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
frederick emmons
