Kudos to Beranek:

[Da5id4Vz]

BERANEK NAMED NATIONAL MEDAL OF SCIENCE LAUREATE

The ASSOCIATED PRESS (10/22) reports that President Bush announced that 16 individuals and the DuPont Co. will receive the nation’s highest honors in science and technology. Reporting that the 2002 National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology are to be awarded at a White House ceremony on Nov. 6, the article notes that Leo Beranek of BBN Technologies was named National Medal of Science laureate in engineering. A news release issued this morning reports that Dr. Leo Beranek, a renowned acoustical scientist and one of the three co-founders of BBN Technologies, a Verizon company, will receive one of the highest honors bestowed on scientists in this country..the National Medal of Science.

[Da5id4Vz]

Some of Mr Beraneks's publications can be seen here:

http://www.civilbooks.com/index/page...o_Beranek.html

[SY]

Beranek's "Acoustics" is one of the most tattered books in my electronics library. I hate to agree with Bush, but I'll make an exception this time.

[Da5id4Vz]

I love the stories of the early BBN days and the coincidences and synergy that took place with Licklider that led to a company that was primarily interested in acoustics to laying the foundations for the internet.

[GRollins]

I've got Acoustics. An excellent book. Beranek's Law can be applied to about 50% of the threads on this site.

Grey

[kelticwizard]

Beranek's Law:

"It has been remarked that if one selects his own components, builds his own enclosure, and is convinced that he has made a wise choice of design, then his own loudspeaker sounds better to him than does anyone else's loudspeaker. In this case, the frequency response of the loudspeaker seems to play only a minor part in forming a person's opinion."

L.L. Beranek, Acoustics (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1954), p.208.

http://www.wjjhoge.com/acoustics05.html

[GRollins]

kelticwizard,
That's the one. With judicious substitution of terms (tube or transistor standing in for components, for instance), the same thing applies to electronics.
Particularly chip designs.

Grey