circuitry at various frequencies extending into the microwave range, radio-wave propagation, electron tube principles, semiconductor electronics, and the use of ferrites as circuit elements. This program has been organized in such a way as to employ the special talents of members of the faculty. Thus, the teaching and research staff have access to the latest developments in electronics and will be able to make immediate instructional and research use of them when military security permits.
Important contributions to this program have been made by Dow, Attwood, Holland, Hok, Macnee, Cline, Scott, Needle, and Rogers of the teaching staff, and Welch, J. R. Black, Orr, and Boyd of the research staff. Many of the resources of the electrical engineering laboratories are of great value in this work, particularly the analog computer facilities, the electron tube laboratory, and the microwave instrumentation laboratory.
The first significant research by the department in electronic computation was begun in 1946 by Kazda. Later, work was carried out on gaseous conduction and semiconductor electronics by Early and Lyman Walton Orr (Toronto '43, Ph.D. Michigan '49). In 1949 the University began the construction of a flexible analog computer unit patterned after the designs employed at the Willow Run Research Center. This unit, completed in 1952, has been used extensively by Macnee in solving important Electronic Defense Group problems.
Gomberg has carried out research on the use of high-frequency power in powder metallurgy, on new methods of electromechanical energy transfer, linear motor systems, a series generator shunt motor oscillator, and on electrically generated heat transients to determine suitability for metal continuity testing. In nuclear engineering he has worked on the development of a high resolution radiation detecting layer (autoradiography) and of a radiation microscope for direct location of radioactive centers in solid state structures, under support by the Atomic Energy Commission, and on application of new methods of autoradiography to metallurgy. With the Medical School's Department of Radiology he has studied thyroid disorders by means of radioiodine. He has also worked on the mechanism of radiation damage and the development of a new X-ray spectrometer. In the Phoenix Project the construction of a mass spectrometer has been designed for stable isotope studies.
Dynamoelectrical machinery. — The history of electrical machinery at the University of Michigan began in 1874 with the purchase of the first machine, a self-excited alternating-current generator, built by W. Ladd, of London. The machine, which was ordered by Albert Prescott, Professor of Organic and Applied Chemistry and Pharmacy, was intended for work in connection with electricity and magnetism, but for some reason it could not be made to generate and so was never used.
At this time Professor George P. Williams was lecturing on general physical theory and analytical mechanics. An article in The Chronicle of October 31, 1874, deplored the lack of aid to Williams' physics laboratory while the Department of Chemistry was "abundantly supplied." The writer stated: "Money has been lavished on rare, costly, and, in some cases, frail machines, such, for example, as the 'Ladd's Machine,' which cannot be coaxed into a display…" This "frail machine" weighed over half a ton. Rehabilitated and operated in the 1930's, it is now the oldest machine in the museum of the Electrical Engineering Department.
In 1875 John W. Langley joined the faculty, and under his leadership the study of electrical machinery gained