Ladies and gentlemen:
It is a true and delightful pleasure to join you in celebrating this
moment in the development of the University at Cluj-Napoc and to
thank you once again for conferring on me the honor of Doctor
Honoris Causa.
My first visit to Romania was all too short and allowed no time to see
your beautiful countryside. But there is every likelihood that there will
be future opportunities to visit and to help further in establishing an
analog laboratory and a strong lecture series for teaching this very
important part of the modern engineering of communication systems
and a huge variety of crucial techniques related to sensor in every
imaginable corner of the modern world.
As developers of electronic systems over the years, we can truly say
that we have changed the world. Unfortunately, there is an increasing
use of communication systems and encryption in ways that, being
honest and peace-loving people, we never foresaw. But on balance,
we know that the applications of electronics in such areas as safer
automobiles and aeronautics, in medicine and in a huge variety of
instruments has brought about a better life for millions of people.
Nonetheless, we are at a moment in time when electronics is still in
its infancy. We can trace the beginning of the era in which the control
of power, the amplification of tiny radio signals and the development
of oscillators became first possible to the invention and subsequent
utilization of the triode vacuum tube, a little over one hundred years
ago. The story of that development makes a fascinating study in the
history of science. Like so many discoveries, it was actually only a
matter of guesswork that inspired Lee de Forest to insert a grid of
wires between the cathode and anode of the diode tube, previously
developed by others – also involving much that was accidental.
In a similar way, it is little known that the bipolar junction transistor
was not so much invented as discovered by some casual tinkering
with a piece of germanium and two springy whiskers of tungsten. Only
after it was taken up by the more famous Brattain and Bardeen wax
it announced as a Bell Telephone Labs breakthrough.
The history of science and technology is full of such accounts of
accidents leading to extremely important consequences. Three of the
most outstanding examples are the discovery of penicillin by the
Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928; the vulcanization of
rubber by the addition of sulphur by Thomas Hancock (1786-1865),
who patented the idea long before Goodyear; and the discovery of
X-rays by Wilhelm Roentgen, a German professor of physics, for which
remarkable achievement he was honored with the first Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1901.
In my view, such accidental discoveries are not a thing of the past.
Modern analog designers, especially, should be encouraged to ask,
over and over again, throughout every day “What If?” and “How
about…” as well, of course as the all-important question “Why?” In
my own experience, the best ideas behind my over one-hundred
patents came in this way, rather than through tedious analysis, and
with scarcely any use of mathematics.
Students need to be told this lesson: It is important to take chances.
Indeed, it is essential, and absolutely necessary to make mistakes in
order to learn. Experience can only come in this way. So while we will
need to teach the essentials of analog design in a systematic way, we
also need to provide many opportunities to work at the bench, to use
signal generators and oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers and
power supplies and much else, all supported by a rich supply of basic
components in numerous cabinets.
I hope very deeply that this will be possible before long at your school
in Cluj-Napoca; and that it will be my privilege to be a part of this
development in the years ahead. Nothing could be more rewarding.
And thank you again for opening this door.
Barrie Gilbert