A scientist who actually changed and improved! the world (unlike one's who only
claim to, like Hagelin)
July 12, 2013
Amar G. Bose, Acoustic Engineer and Inventor, Dies at 83
By GLENN RIFKIN
Amar G. Bose, the visionary engineer, inventor and billionaire
entrepreneur whose namesake company, the Bose Corporation, became
synonymous with high-quality audio systems and speakers for home users,
auditoriums and automobiles, died on Friday at his home in Wayland,
Mass. He was 83. His death was confirmed by his son, Dr. Vanu G. Bose.
As founder and chairman of the privately held company, Dr. Bose focused
relentlessly on acoustic engineering innovation. His speakers, though
expensive, earned a reputation for bringing concert-hall-quality audio
into the home.
And by refusing to offer stock to the public, Dr. Bose was able to
pursue risky long-term research, such as noise-canceling headphones and
an innovative suspension system for cars, without the pressures of
quarterly earnings announcements.
In a 2004 interview in Popular Science magazine, he said: “I would have
been fired a hundred times at a company run by M.B.A.’s. But I never
went into business to make money. I went into business so that I could
do interesting things that hadn’t been done before.”
A perfectionist and a devotee of classical music, Dr. Bose was
disappointed by the inferior sound of a high-priced stereo system he
purchased when he was an M.I.T. engineering student in the 1950s. His
interest in acoustic engineering piqued, he realized that 80 percent of
the sound experienced in a concert hall was indirect, meaning that it
bounced off walls and ceilings before reaching the audience.
This realization, using basic concepts of physics, formed the basis of
his research. In the early 1960s, Dr. Bose invented a new type of stereo
speaker based on psychoacoustics, the study of sound perception. His
design incorporated multiple small speakers aimed at the surrounding
walls, rather than directly at the listener, to reflect the sound and,
in essence, recreate the larger sound heard in concert halls. In 1964,
at the urging of his mentor and adviser at M.I.T., Dr. Y. W. Lee, he
founded his company to pursue long-term research in acoustics. The Bose
Corporation initially pursued military contracts, but Dr. Bose’s vision
was to produce a new generation of stereo speakers.
Though his first speakers fell short of expectations, Dr. Bose kept at
it. In 1968, he introduced the Bose 901 Direct/Reflecting speaker
system, which became a best seller for more than 25 years and firmly
entrenched Bose, based in Framingham, Mass., as a leader in a highly
competitive audio components marketplace. Unlike conventional
loudspeakers, which radiated sound only forward, the 901s used a blend
of direct and reflected sound.
Later inventions included the popular Bose Wave radio and the Bose
noise-canceling headphones, which were so effective they were adopted by the
military and commercial pilots.
A Bose software program enabled acoustic engineers to simulate the sound from
any seat in a large hall, even before the site was built. The
system was used to create sound systems for such diverse spaces as
Staples Center in Los Angeles, the Sistine Chapel and the Masjid
al-Haram, the grand mosque in Mecca.
In 1982, some of the world’s top automakers, including Mercedes and
Porsche, began to install Bose audio systems in their vehicles, and the
brand remains a favorite in that market segment.
Dr. Bose’s devotion to research was matched by his passion for teaching. Having
earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in
electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
the 1950s, Dr. Bose returned from a Fulbright scholarship at the
National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi and joined the M.I.T. faculty
in 1956.
He taught there for more than 45 years, and in 2011, donated a majority
of his company’s shares to the school. The gift provides M.I.T. with
annual cash dividends. M.I.T. cannot sell the shares and does not
participate in the company’s management.
Dr. Bose made a lasting impression in the classroom as well as in his
company. His popular course on acoustics was as much about life as about
electronics, said Alan V. Oppenheim, an M.I.T. engineering professor
and a longtime colleague.
“He talked not only about acoustics but about philosophy, personal
behavior, what is important in life. He was somebody with extraordinary
standards,” Professor Oppenheim said.
Dr. William R. Brody, head of the Salk Institute in the La Jolla
neighborhood of San Diego, was a student in Dr. Bose’s class in 1962. He told
Popular Science: “His class gave me the courage to tackle
high-risk problems and equipped me with the problem-solving skills I
needed to be successful in several careers. Amar Bose taught me how to
think.”
Amar Gopal Bose was born on Nov. 2, 1
