From Immigrant to Inventor

by Michael Pupin

This new knowledge was the second great revelation of the nineteenth century. The wonderful things which followed in its wake, even before the nineteenth century had closed, testify to the greatness of that revelation.

I have often asked myself the question, Why did not our Joseph Henry, who discovered the oscillatory electrical motions and operated with apparatus similar to that employed by Hertz, pursue his studies further than he did in 1842? and why did not Maxwell, the formulator of the modern electromagnetic science, perform those ideally simple experiments which Hertz performed? The knowledge of the electrical oscillator was the same in 1865 as in 1887, and Maxwell undoubtedly had that knowledge. History offers an answer to these questions and this answer throws a splendid light upon the character of these two great scientists.

Soon after 1842 Joseph Henry resigned his professorship at Princeton College, and bade good-by to his laboratory where he had made several of his splendid discoveries, and where in 1832 he had constructed and operated the first electromagnetic telegraph, one of the practical results of his great discoveries. This happened long before Morse had ever been heard of. Henry’s fame among men of science was very great and promised to grow even greater if he continued his scientific researches. He was still in his prime, only a few years over forty. But a patriotic duty called him to Washington, where the Smithsonian Institution waited for his skilled hand to organize it and to defend it against the scheming politician. This duty tore him away from his beloved laboratory, and he spent the rest of his life, over thirty years, in Washington as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, as originator of most of the national scientific bureaus of which this country is proud to-day. He was also the first president of the National Academy of Sciences, chartered by Congress in 1863, thanks to his efforts. Physical science under his leadership had rendered valuable service to the country during the Civil War, and the congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences was a graceful recognition of this service. I have already pointed out Joseph Henry’s splendid efforts for the advancement of scientific research in this country and shall return to it later. He was a great scientist, but he was also a great patriot; his country stood first and his own scientific achievements and fame stood second in his heart. That, I am sure, was the reason why he did not pursue any further than he did his researches of electrical oscillations. I will mention here that one of the most gratifying results of my humble efforts was the naming of an electrical unit after his name. My colleague, the late Professor Francis Bacon Crocker of Columbia University, joined me most enthusiastically in these efforts; and the Electrical Congress in Chicago in 1893, at which Helmholtz presided, adopted the name Henry as the unit of electrical inductance; the unit Farad was named in honor of Faraday. No other electrical units are in more frequent use than the Farad and the Henry, particularly in the radio art. No other men contributed to this art as much as Faraday and Henry did.

Maxwell resigned his professorship at King’s College, London, at the end of 1865, soon after he had communicated to the Royal Society his great memoir on the electromagnetic theory. The electromagnetic theory of light which, as I pointed out before, he had called “great guns” in a letter addressed to a friend, was the climax of it. He retired to his country place, Glenlair, in Scotland, and for five years he was free to devote his entire time to study and meditation. That was the highest joy of his life. But the Duke of Devonshire, a loyal Cambridge man, had presented the university with a goodly sum of money for the building and equipment of a physical laboratory. It was to be named the Cavendish laboratory, after Lord Cavendish, the Duke’s illustrious ancestor, who had devoted his life to electrical science. This gift was the Duke’s response to the Cambridge movement in favor of scientific research. Maxwell was called to Cambridge to become the director of the new laboratory, and he responded, knowing well that, from that moment on, most of his time would be devoted to organization and administration. Duty to his university, and to the cause of scientific research in Great Britain, stood higher in his heart than the experimental demonstration of his great theory; that was certainly one of the reasons why Maxwell did not perform those ideally simple experiments which Hertz performed. But as director of the Cavendish laboratory he had trained a number of men, in order to prepare them to push on the line of advance where he had left it; and one of them, in particular, was soon to take the leadership in the rapid development of the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory.

The examples of Henry and of Maxwell must have been in Andrew White’s mind when in 1873 he spoke those memorable words which I quoted before and will quote here again:

I will confine myself to the value, in our political progress, of the spirit and example of some of the scientific workers of our day and generation. What is the example which reveals that spirit? It is an example of zeal, ... of thoroughness, of bravery, ... of devotion to duty without which no scientific work can be accomplished, ... of faith that truth and goodness are inseparable.

The Hertzian experiments created quite an upheaval in the research programme of the Physical Institute; everybody seemed anxious to drop his particular subject of research and try his hand at the Hertzian waves. Several candidates for the doctor’s degree yielded, but I resisted and returned to my problem in physical chemistry, and plodded along as if nothing had happened. I was very anxious to finish my research, get my doctor’s degree, and return to the United States. But I soon found out that there are currents in human life which can influence the course of life of a young scientist much more powerfully than even a new and powerful current of thought in physical sciences.

During the first two months of 1888, Nikola, the Bosnian Serb, began to look worried. He informed me confidentially that he had received bad news about the health of his great “komshiya,” the aged Kaiser. The audiences at the palace were separated by longer and longer intervals, and Habel’s long table began to look deserted; the old generals with their splendid uniforms were conspicuously absent and the historic chop-house began to look commonplace. The daily parades of the guards were finally suspended, and there were no expectant crowds in front of the Imperial palace. The gay life of Unter den Linden became very much subdued. Finally the historic event occurred: the great emperor died on March 9, 1888. Berlin went into mourning and prepared for a funeral such as Germany had never seen before. “I have secured a balcony for you and your friends right over my store,” said Nikola; “I want you and your friends to see the funeral procession as my guests.” His grief over the death of the old emperor was really pathetic. He wanted me and my American friends to see the great procession which, according to his gloomy forebodings, was to mark the first step downward in the wonderful development of the German Empire. When, consoling him, I pointed out the well-known virtues of Crown Prince Frederick, he took hold of his larynx and his gesture indicated that he expected the death of the Crown Prince from his incurable malady. “What then?” I asked him. He answered: “Ask your Bismarck and Moltke, Helmholtz and Siemens; they are your oracles, perhaps they can answer your question; no ordinary mortal can.”

Nikola had never met my American friends whom he mentioned in his invitation, but he had heard a great deal about them. My classmate at Columbia, A. V. Williams Jackson, now the distinguished Orientalist and professor at Columbia University, was at that time at the University of Halle, studying with the great Orientalist, Professor Geltner. He had visited me in Berlin and I returned his visit by spending with him a week-end at Halle. This was shortly before the great Kaiser’s death. Jackson’s mother and two sisters were there on a longer visit, and for two days I felt that I was back in New York again, and I was supremely happy. On the way back to Berlin I could not dismiss from my mind the memory of my mother’s words: “You must marry an American girl if you wish to remain an American, which I know you do.” Ever since my return from Halle, I could hear these words ringing in my ear no matter where I was, in my lodgings, in the laboratory, in the lecture-rooms, or even in Nikola’s store. Nikola had read my thoughts, and when he mentioned my American friends he meant Jackson and his mother and sisters at Halle. Well, they came, they saw, and they conquered. One of Jackson’s sisters went to Italy during that spring and I followed; she returned to Berlin to join her mother and I followed; she went to the island of Norderney, in the North Sea, to spend a part of the summer season, and I followed. The Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory and the Hertzian experiments, my research in physical chemistry, and the learned essays of Helmholtz and Willard Gibbs, and of all the other fathers of physical chemistry, disappeared from my mind as if they had never been there. The only problem that could find a place there was the question: Will she accept me? She finally did, and I made a bee-line for New York, in order to find out how soon I could get a job there.

The Columbia authorities were organizing at that time a new department in the School of Mines, the Department of Electrical Engineering, and they were glad to see me and consult me about it. It was to start its work a year from that time, that is, the end of September, 1889. I was offered a position in it as “Teacher of Mathematical Physics in the Department of Electrical Engineering.” A very long title, indeed, but such it was and an interesting bit of history is attached to it. I accepted gladly and hurried back to Europe proud as a peacock. My fiancée and her family met me in London and I was married in the Greek church, according to the rites of the Orthodox faith, the faith of my mother and of all my ancestors.