Alan Blumlein

Alan Dower Blumlein (29 June 1903 – 7 June 1942) was an English electronics engineer, notable for his many inventions in telecommunications, sound recording, stereo, television and radar. He received 128 patents and was considered as one of the most significant engineers and inventors of his time.

He died on 7 June 1942, aged 38, during the secret trial of an H2S airborne radar system, then under development during World War II when the Halifax bomber he was flying in crashed at Welsh Bicknor, Herefordshire killing all on board.

Early life

Alan Dower Blumlein was born on 29 June 1903 in Hampstead, London to Semmy Blumlein, a German-born naturalised British subject of Jewish descent, and Jessie Dower, a Scottish missionary's daughter. He was christened as a Presbyterian, though he later married in a Church of England parish. His future career seems to have been determined by the age of seven, when he presented his father with an invoice for repairing the doorbell, signed "Alan Blumlein, Electrical Engineer" (with "paid" scrawled in pencil). His sister claimed that he could not read proficiently until he was 12. He replied "no, but I knew a lot of quadratic equations!"

After matriculating at Highgate School in 1921, he studied at City and Guilds College (part of Imperial College). He won a Governor's scholarship and joined the second year of the course. He graduated with a First-Class Honours B.Sc two years later.

Career and inventions

Telecommunications

In 1924 Blumlein started his first job at International Western Electric, a division of the Bell Labs. The company subsequently became International Standard Electric Corporation and then, later on, Standard Telephones and Cables (STC).

During his time there, he measured the amplitude/frequency response of human ears, and used the results to design the first weighting networks.

In 1924 he published (with Professor Edward Mallett) the first of his only two IEE papers, on high-frequency resistance measurement. This won him the IEE's Premium award for innovation. The following year he wrote (with Norman Kipping) a series of seven articles for Wireless World.

In 1925 and 1926, Blumlein and John Percy Johns designed an improved form of loading coil which reduced loss and crosstalk in long-distance telephone lines. These were used until the end of the analogue telephony era. The same duo also invented an improved form of AC measurement bridge which became known as the Blumlein Bridge. These two inventions were the basis for Blumlein's first two patents.

His inventions while working at STC resulted in another five patents, which were not awarded until after he left the company in 1929.

Sound recording

In 1929 Blumlein handed in his notice at STC and joined the Columbia Graphophone Company, where he reported directly to general manager Isaac Shoenberg.

His first project was to find a method of disc cutting that circumvented a Bell patent in the Western Electric moving-iron cutting head then used, and on which substantial royalties had to be paid. He invented the moving-coil disc cutting head, which not only got around the patent but offered greatly improved sound quality. He led a small team which developed the concept into a practical cutter. The other principal team members were Herbert Holman and Henry "Ham" Clark. Their work resulted in several patents.

Early in 1931, the Columbia Graphophone Company and the Gramophone Company merged and became EMI. New joint research laboratories were set up at Hayes and Blumlein was officially transferred there on 1 November the same year.

During the early 1930s Blumlein and Herbert Holman developed a series of moving-coil microphones, which were used in EMI recording studios and by the BBC at Alexandra Palace.

Stereo

Blumlein developed his ideas on what he called "binaural sound", now known as stereo, during this same period.

In early 1931, Blumlein and his wife were at a local cinema. The sound reproduction systems of the early "talkies" invariably only had a single set of speakers - which could lead to the somewhat disconcerting effect of the actor being on one side of the screen whilst his voice appeared to come from the other. Blumlein declared to his wife that he had found a way to make the sound follow the actor across the screen.

The genesis of these ideas is uncertain, but he explained them to Isaac Shoenberg in the late summer of 1931. His earliest notes on the subject are dated 25 September 1931, and his patent had the headline "Improvements in and relating to Sound-transmission, Sound-recording and Sound-reproducing Systems". The application, No. 34,657/31, was dated 14 December 1931; it was complete left on 10 November 1932, and was complete accepted on 14 June 1933 as British patent No. 394325.

Whereas work led by Harvey Fletcher at Bell Labs at about the same time considered sound systems using multiple channels, Blumlein always aimed at a system with just two channels.

The patent covered many ideas in stereo, some of which are used today and some not. Some 70 claims include:

• A "shuffling" circuit, which aimed to preserve the directional effect when sound from a spaced pair of microphones was reproduced via a pair of loudspeakers instead of stereo headphones;
• The use of a coincident pair of velocity microphones with their axes at right angles to each other, which is still known as a "Blumlein Pair";
• Recording two channels in the single groove of a record using the two groove walls at right angles to each other and 45 degrees to the vertical;
• A stereo disc-cutting head;
• Using hybrid transformers to matrix between left and right signals and sum and difference signals;

Binaural experiments began in early 1933, and the first stereo discs were cut later the same year.

Much of the development work on this system for cinematic use did not reach completion until 1935. In a few short test films (most notably, "Trains At Hayes Station" and, "The Walking & Talking Film"), Blumlein's original intent of having the sound follow the actor was fully realised.

Television

Television was developed by many individuals and companies throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Blumlein's contributions, as a member of the EMI team, started in earnest in 1933 when his boss, Isaac Shoenberg, assigned him full-time to TV research.

His ideas included:

• Resonant flyback scanning (the use of a tuned circuit in the creation of a sawtooth deflection waveform). (British Patent No. 400976, application filed April 1932.)
• Use of constant-impedance network in power supplies to obtain voltage regulation independent of load frequency, extending down to DC (421546, filed 16 June 1933).
• Black-level clamping (422914, filed 11 July 1933 by Blumlein, Browne and Hardwick). This is an improved form of DC restoration, compared to the simple DC restorer (consisting of a capacitor, diode and resistor) which had been patented by Peter Willans three months earlier.
• The slot antenna. (515684, filed 7 March 1939.)

Blumlein was also largely responsible for the development of the waveform structure used in the 405-line Marconi-EMI system - originally developed for the UK's BBC Television Service at Alexandra Palace, the world's first scheduled "high definition" (240 lines or better) television service - which was later adopted as the CCIR System A.

H2S radar and Blumlein's death

The Halifax bomber, V9977, which crashed in June 1942, killing Blumlein and several other key radar technicians. Sabotage was suspected but never proved.

Main article: H2S radar

Blumlein was so central to the development of the H2S airborne radar system (to aid bomb targeting), that when he was killed on a test flight in June 1942, many believed that the project would fail. However it survived and was a factor in shortening the Second World War. Blumlein's role in the project was a closely guarded secret at the time and consequently only a brief announcement of his death was made some two years later, in order to avoid providing solace to Hitler.

His invention of the line type pulse modulator, (ref vol 5 of MIT Radiation Laboratory series) was a major contribution to high powered pulse radars, not just the H2S's system, and continues to be used today.

Personal life

Alan Blumlein had two sons, Simon Blumlein and David Blumlein, Headmaster Emeritus of a prep school in Ealing, London.

Tributes

• Alan Blumlein Way is a road on the Tektronix Beaverton, Oregon campus, keeping with their policy of naming roads after those who made significant contributions to the knowledge and understanding in the field of electronics.

See also

• H2S radar
• Blumlein Pair, a stereo recording technique invented by Alan Blumlein.
• Stereophonic sound
• Blumlein transmission line, used to create high-voltage pulses with short rise and fall times.

Further reading

• Alexander, Robert Charles (1999). The Inventor of Stereo: The Life and Works of Alan Dower Blumlein. Focal Press. ISBN 0-240-51628-1. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
• Burns, Russell W (2000). The Life and Times of A. D. Blumlein. IEE History of Technology series. IEE. ISBN 0-85296-773-X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)

External links

• The crashed Halifax aircraft V9977
• Blumlein page at AlanTuring.net
• Biography of Blumlein on IEEE Global History Network