[TowerTalk] Fwd: Acoustical Society News

[Jim Brown]

Tower Talkers:

I don't often post stuff like this anywhere, but as a man of science, I 
appreciate seeing scientists honored, especially when one of them has so 
directly touched what I do. James West is the co-inventor of the electret 
condenser microphone, which has, by now, probably displaced the carbon 
microphone as the most ubiquitous microphone on the planet. His invention 
made it possible to make very small, very good quality mics at very low cost. 
Nearly all mics used in ham radio are electret mics. 

73,

Jim Brown

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Dear ASA member,

I am writing to let you know that two ASA Fellows, Jan D. Achenbach and James 
E. West, will be honored today at the White House.

U. S. President George W. Bush will present the 2005 and 2006 National Medals 
of Science and Technology at a White House ceremony on Friday, July 27, at 
1:50 p.m. The ceremony will be carried live by satellite feed and Web cast on 
the White House Web site, http://www.whitehouse.gov.

Jan Achenbach, Walter P. Murphy and Distinguished McCormick School Professor 
in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern 
University, will be receiving the 2005 National Medal of Science for his 
seminal contributions to engineering research and education in the area of 
wave propagation in solids and for pioneering the field of quantitative non-
destructive evaluation.  Additional information may be found at 
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/05/national.html

James E. West, Research Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer 
Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, will 
be receiving the 2006 National Medal of Technology "for co-inventing the 
electret microphone while working with Gerhard Sessler at Bell Labs in 
1962."  Additional information may be found at 
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home07/jul07/west.html

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