Ralph Hartley

Ralph Vinton Lyon Hartley (November 30, 1888 – May 1, 1970) was an American electronics researcher. He made important contributions to science and technology that are still used today.

Hartey invented the Hartley oscillator, a device that helps create steady electrical signals, and developed the Hartley transform, a mathematical way to understand signals. His work also helped lay the groundwork for information theory, the study of how information is shared and stored.

Because of his important contributions, a unit of information called the hartley was named after him. One hartley measures one decimal digit of information.

Biography

Ralph Hartley was born in Sprucemont, Nevada and studied at the University of Utah. He later attended St Johns at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

Hartley worked at the Research Laboratory of the Western Electric Company. He helped develop radio receiver technology for the Bell System. He created an important circuit design called the Hartley oscillator.

After the war, Hartley continued his research at what became Bell Laboratories. He studied how to send information more effectively and laid groundwork for later discoveries in information theory. He also worked on important projects during World War II. Hartley retired in 1950 and passed away on May 1, 1970.

Awards

Ralph Hartley received the IRE Medal of Honor in 1946 for inventing his oscillator and for his work on information. This award came from the Institute of Radio Engineers, which later joined with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He was also made a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Publications

This is a list of some important works by Ralph Hartley. These include research papers and articles he wrote on different science topics.

• Hartley, R.V.L., "The Function of Phase Difference in the Binaural Location of Pure Tones," Physical Review, Volume 13, Issue 6, pp 373–385, (June 1919).
• Hartley, R.V.L., Fry T.C.,"The Binaural Location of Pure Tones", Physical Review, Volume 18, Issue 6, pp 431 – 442, (December 1921).
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Relations of Carrier and Side-Bands in Radio Transmission", Proceedings of the IRE, Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 34 – 56, (February 1923).
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Transmission of Information".
• Hartley, R.V.L., "A Wave Mechanism of Quantum Phenomena", Physical Review, Volume 33, Issue 2, Page 289, (1929) (abstract only)
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Oscillations in Systems with Non-Linear Reactance", The Bell System Technical Journal, Volume 15, Number 3, pp 424 – 440, (July 1936).
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Excitation of Raman Spectra with the Aid of Optical Catalysers", Nature, Volume 139, pg 329 - 329, (20 February 1937)
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Steady State Delay as Related to Aperiodic Signals", Bell System Technical Journal, Volume 20, Number 2, pp 222 – 234, (April 1941).
• Hartley, R.V.L., "A More Symmetrical Fourier Analysis Applied to Transmission Problems," Proceedings of the IRE, Volume 30, Number 2, pp. 144–150 (March 1942).
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Note on the Application of Vector Analysis to the Wave Equation", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Volume 22, Issue 4, pg 511, (1950).
• Hartley, R.V.L., "The Significance of Nonclassical Statistics", Science, Volume 111, Number 2891, pp 574 – 576, (May 26, 1950)
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Matter, a Mode of Motion", Bell System Technical Journal, Volume 29, Number 3, pg 350 - 368, (July 1950).
• Hartley, R.V.L., "The Reflection of Diverging Waves by a Gyrostatic Medium", Bell System Technical Journal, Volume 29, Number 3, pp 369 – 389, (July 1950),
• Hartley, R.V.L., "A New System of Logarithmic Units", Proceedings of the IRE, Volume. 43, Number 1, pg 97, (January 1955).
• Hartley, R.V.L., "New System of Logarithmic Units", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Volume 27, Issue 1, pp 174 – 176, (1955)
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Information Theory of The Fourier Analysis and Wave Mechanics", August 10, 1955, publication information unknown.
• Hartley, R.V.L., "The Mass of a Wave Particle", July 30, 1955, unpublished manuscript, copies available from the Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park MD
• Hartley, R.V.L., "The Mechanism of Gravitation", January 11, 1956, unpublished manuscript; copies available from the Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park MD
• Hartley, R.V.L., "The Mechanism of Electricity and Magnetism", June 14, 1956, unpublished manuscript, copies available from the Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park MD
• Hartley, R.V.L., "Rotational Waves in a Turbulent Liquid", Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Volume 29, Issue 2, pp 195 – 196, (1957)
• Hartley, R.V.L., "A Mechanistic Theory of Extra-Atomic Physics", Philosophy of Science, Volume 26, Number 4, pp 295 – 309, (October 1959)