William Earle Bradley Jr. (January 7, 1913 – September 19, 2000) was an American engineer and businessman who was the first president of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific soci ...

. He spent much of his career in research at

Philco Philco (an acronym for Philadelphia Battery Company) is an American electronics industry, electronics manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia. Philco was a pioneer in battery, radio, and television production. In 1961, the company was purchase ...

. He also spent 10 years doing government work and founded a water-purification business.

Personal life

Bradley was born January 7, 1913, in

Lansdowne, Pennsylvania Lansdowne is a borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, located southwest of Center City, Philadelphia, Center City Philadelphia. It was named for the Marquess of Lansdowne. As of the 2010 United States ...

. For 41 years he was married to Virginia Althea Meyer, also an employee of

. When he died on September 19, 2000, he was survived by two children. He was a member of Wrightstown Friends Meeting.

Career

Bradley earned a degree in

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

from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

in 1936, although the university counted him in the Class of 1935. He was a member of

Tau Beta Pi The Tau Beta Pi Association (commonly Tau Beta Pi, , or TBP) is the oldest engineering honor society and the second oldest collegiate honor society in the United States. It honors engineering students in American universities who have shown a ...

and

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is an international non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a faculty member and graduate students in 1886 and is one of the oldest ...

. In June 1936 he joined

as a factory test engineer working on radio receivers. The next year he began working on wide-band amplifiers for television receivers, then in the experimental stage. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he participated in Philco's collaboration with the

Radiation Laboratory The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 3 ...

of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, a collaboration that led to the invention of

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

. He was promoted to assistant director of Philco's research division in 1945, director of the research division in 1946, and technical director in 1952. In addition to his research on television and radar, he also worked in

physical optics In physics, physical optics, or wave optics, is the branch of optics that studies Interference (wave propagation), interference, diffraction, Polarization (waves), polarization, and other phenomena for which the ray approximation of geometric opti ...

solid-state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as solid-state chemistry, quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state phy ...

, and

transistor A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch electrical signals and electric power, power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semicondu ...

manufacturing at Philco. In 1957 Bradley went on leave from Philco and spent the next 10 years doing scientific work for the federal government. He began on President

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

's Science Advisory Panel, chairing a subcommittee on

missile defense Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear weapon, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic mi ...

as part of an arrangement with

MIT Lincoln Laboratory The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and dev ...

. He later moved to the

Institute for Defense Analyses The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an American non-profit corporation that administers three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) – the Systems and Analyses Center (SAC), Science and Technology Policy Institute, t ...

. In 1970 Bradley moved to

New Hope, Pennsylvania New Hope is a borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,612 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. New Hope is located approximately north of Philadelphia, and lies on the west b ...

, where he founded Puredesal Corp., which researched energy-efficient water purification. The business failed, and Bradley became a consultant. He was involved in work on

Marambio Base Marambio Station () is a permanent, all year-round Argentine Antarctica station named after Vice-Commodore , an Antarctic aviation pioneer. It is located in Marambio Island, Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula, some from the coastal civilian vil ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Bradley played a prominent role in the early life of the

(SIAM). He delivered the lecture at the third meeting of SIAM in May 1952, the first since the organization was incorporated. In October of that year Bradley became the organization's first president at the urging of Ed Block, who worked under him at Philco and who spearheaded SIAM's creation. Bradley resigned shortly after, however, citing conflicts with his other activities. In May 1953 he was replaced by Donald B. Houghton.

References

External links

Presidents of SIAM
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradley, William E. Jr. 1913 births 2000 deaths American electrical engineers University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni American business executives Presidents of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics People from Lansdowne, Pennsylvania People from Bucks County, Pennsylvania 20th-century American businesspeople Engineers from Pennsylvania 20th-century American engineers