Oliver Ellsworth Buckley (August 8, 1887 – December 14, 1959) was an American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

known for his contributions to the field of submarine telephony.

Biography

Buckley was an undergraduate at Grinnell College until 1909. He joined the Bell System after completing his PhD in physics at Cornell University in 1914. In 1915, Buckley, along with AT&T coworkers H. D. Arnold and Gustav Elmen, developed a method of substantially improving the transmission performance of

submarine communications cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried tel ...

so that transmission speed of over 2000 letters per minute were achieved. They constructed the cable by wrapping the copper conductors with annealed

permalloy Permalloy is a nickel–iron magnetic alloy, with about 80% nickel and 20% iron content. Invented in 1914 by physicist Gustav Elmen at Bell Telephone Laboratories, it is notable for its very high magnetic permeability, which makes it useful as a ...

tape, a material that Elmen had discovered, thus inductively loading the cable. Buckley was the president of Bell Labs from 1940 to 1951, and chairman of the board from 1951 until his retirement in 1952. Buckley was a member of the General Advisory Committee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1948 to 1954. In that role, Buckley opposed the 1950 decision to proceed with the development of the

hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...

, but by 1952 had changed his view and supported the program. Buckley received the IEEE Edison Medal for "contributions to the science and art which have made possible a transatlantic telephone cable; for wise leadership of a great industrial laboratory; for outstanding services to the government of his country". The Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize is named in his honor.

References

External links

IEEE Buckley biography

Biographical Memoirs from The National Academy of Sciences by Mervin J. Kelly
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buckley, Oliver E. 1887 births 1959 deaths 20th-century American inventors American electrical engineers American telecommunications engineers Cornell University alumni Grinnell College alumni IEEE Edison Medal recipients Scientists at Bell Labs