Frederick E. Terman [Scanning the Past]

Sixty-five years ago this month, the Proceedings of the Institue of Radio Engineers (IRE) included a paper by Frederick E. Terman of Stanford University concerning the information-handling capacity of the radio spectrum. At the time, he was in the early stages of a career which would gain him recognition as one of the most influential electrical engineering educators of the 20th century. He was to play a key role in the emergence of Stanford as a center of graduate education and research and as a seedbed for firms such as Hewlett-Packard and Varian Associates. This article recounts the life and professional achievements of Mr. Terman. He served as Chairman of the IEEE History Committee during the early 1970's and helped lay the groundwork for the creation of the IEEE Center for the History of Electrical Engineering. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1976. He died in December 1982 at age 82.