THE TRAVELING-WAVE TUBE

PIERCE, J. R.

Traveling-Wave Tubes.

New York, American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 1950. 8vo. Volume XXIX, Number 1, January 1950 of "The Bell System Technical Journal". Entire volume offered. In the original printed blue wrappers. With previous owner's name to front wrapper. Sunning to spine and margins of front wrapper. A two centimeter long tear to top of spine, no loss. Internally a nice and clean copy. Pp. 1-59. [Entire volume: Pp. 1-116].

First publication of Pierce's seminal and exceedingly influential paper on traveling-wave tube amplifiers. A Traveling-wave tube is an electronic device used to amplify radio frequency signals to high power. Even though the invention is widely contributed to Rudolf Kompfner in 1942-43, and Nils Lindenblad patented a device in 1940 similar to the traveling wave tube, is it Pierce that invented a fully functional and useable device.

"It was Pierce who exploited its [the Traveling-Wave Tube] great potential as a broadband ultrahigh frequency and microwave amplifier. Pierce's initial successes with the new amplifier and his theoretical analysis of the operation of the traveling wave principle provided stimulus for colleagues at Bell Labs and workers elsewhere to enter this field of research." (Millman, S. A History of Engineering & Science in the Bell System, 1984, p. 177).
The first communication satellite the Telstar had not been able to send signals back to earth without Pierce' Traveling-Wave Tube.

The issue also contains:
1. Rice, S. O. Communication in the Presence of Noice - Probability of Error for Two Encoding Schemes. Pp. 60-93.
2. Darlington, Sidney. Realization of a Constant Phase Difference. Pp. 94-104.
3. Eggleston, Richard C.. Conversion of Concentrated Loads on Wood Crossarms to Loads Distributed at Each Pin Position. Pp. 105-116.
4. Richardson, J.M. The Linear Theory of Fluctuations Arising from Diffusional Mechanisms - An Attempt at a Theory of Contact Noise. Pp. 117-141.

Order-nr.: 43509