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Memorial for Professor Hermann Haus (1925-2003) |
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All of us, family, friends,
colleagues, or just first time observers knew one thing, when listening
to Hermann Haus, one immediately sensed class, intellectual excellence,
clarity of thought, sense of scientific history and simply, an aura
of a profound presence. These elements of greatness in Hermann Haus
we will no longer be able to relish. On the evening of May 21st, 2003,
after cycling from MIT to his home, Hermann Anton Haus, Institute Professor
at MIT suffered a fatal heart attack.
Prof. Haus, born August 8, 1925, in Ljubljana, Slovenia,
in the former Yugoslavia, received his early technical education in
Austria at the Technical University of Graz and the University of Vienna.
He moved to the U.S. in 1948, earning a B.S. from Union College in 1949,
an M.S. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
in 1951, and. Sc.D. from MIT in 1954. Prof. Haus joined the MIT faculty
in 1954, where he served as an Institute Professor until his sudden
death.
There are rare individuals who energize fields to
take it to new heights while others support its vigorous development.
Prof. Haus was such a rare individual in the field of quantum electronics
and optical communications, having extensively published pioneering
works spanning nearly half a century, with both fundamental and applied
optical and electronic research. His peers and admirers recognized him
with their highest awards such as the Optical Society of America 1994
Frederic Ives Medal, the Austrian government’s Wittgenstein Prize
awarded for outstanding contributions to humanity, and the National
Medal of Science in 1995 from US President Clinton.
Prof. Haus (Life Fellow IEEE) was a member extraordinaire
of the IEEE LEOS, contributing vigorously either via his lively educational
talks or his pioneering presentations across the globe. Always approachable
by both senior and younger members of the community, Prof. Haus’s
elegant personality and teaching style won many undecided young minds
into studying the beauty of optics. For those fortunate enough to have
known Prof. Haus, like myself, he was a role model and statesman for
optics scholars, always encouraging and providing a listening ear for
his younger colleagues.
As exemplified next, Prof. Haus commanded great respect
from his contemporaries who admired not only his technical prowess but
also integrity and friendship.
“Hermann Haus was one of the great leaders and
pioneers in the field of Quantum Electronics and Optical Communications.
His contributions and interest spanned a wide spectrum from fundamentals
to applications, from science to technology, from academia to industry.
He made key contributions to the understanding of noise in electron
tubes and in lasers, to the fundamentals and applications of ultrashort
optical pulses, to intricate interactions between solitons in optical
fibers and the spontaneous emission of optical amplifiers leading to
the GORDON-HAUS jitter, to the conception of the quarter-wave-shifted
distributed feedback laser, and many more. He was a master in the bridging
between science and technology, between university and industry where
he spent a great many sabbaticals. Each of these sabbaticals in industry
seems to have led to yet another technological breakthrough. Reflecting
this broad range of interests are his elections to both the National
Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering. His inquisitive
mind and love of learning seemed to know no bounds. Just a few weeks
ago, believe it or not, he was talking to me about Slovenian poetry.
Many of us in the research community feel that we have lost a very unique
and precious friend.”
“I first met Hermann in 1948 when we were students
in Electrical Engineering at Union College in Schenectady, NY. I was
a freshman and he was a senior. He was one of several students from
war-torn Europe to come to Union. Even as a student, he left a lasting
impression. Later, when he was a professor at MIT and I was a PhD student
at Harvard, he saved me from a physically unrealizable thesis. At that
time, he proved that the Manley-Rowe relations for circuits also held
in distributed systems. Thus, it would not be possible to make a ferrite
parametric amplifier with signal frequency greater than the pump frequency,
despite the wishes of my advisor. Over the years, I had many other opportunities
to admire his wonderful scientific insights and his ability to explain
them. I also had occasions to witness his generous nature. I will miss
him.
“It was a great pleasure and enlightenment to
be close to Hermann Haus during my time at MIT and the early days of
non-linear optics. He has played an important role in development of
non-linear optics and optical communication. The Gordon-Haus noise formulation
has his name attached, but is only one of many contributions”.
“Dr. Jim Gordon and Prof. Hermann Haus published
a famous paper that shows timing jitters caused by amplifier noise limit
the error free distance of all optical soliton transmission systems.
As the initiator of the all-optical soliton system, I felt necessity
of responding to this challenge and came up with a simple solution in
early 1991. The idea was to use frequency filters at each amplifiers.
On an early summer day of 1991, I had a phone call from Hermann. He
started talking somewhat in an embarrassed way about the work that Yuji
Kodama and I just prepared for Optics Letters that describes this solution.
Apparently, Hermann with Dr. Mecozzi have come up with a similar idea
and reported it at the Gordon Conference in the summer 1991. First,
I had no idea what he was talking about since he started asking whether
my colleague or I had attended the Gordon Conference and heard about
their work. I was also embarrassed hearing from him but explained that
our work had been done much earlier and had no knowledge of Mecozzi’s
work. The conversation has cleared Hermann’s doubt that we might
have abused their work and we regained our close friendship. Their work
was published in December 1991 issue of Optics Letters and ours in January
1992. Ironically they were in different volumes but the received dates
differ only by one week. Herman gave challenge against my all-optical
transmission concept and later presented the solution, while I, being
an optimist, knew I could solve the problem and succeed in doing so.
My special admiration of Hermann is his sincere interest in science
and continuous curiosity on intriguing problems as indicated in the
episode. He has kept this attitude until the last days of his life.
“I have known Hermann Haus for over 40 years
and I have always been very impressed by his work in optoelectronics.
I have also enjoyed meeting him at many international conferences. I
hold Hermann Haus in great regard.”
“Hermann Haus will be sorely missed by many,
including me. He was ever involved in a vigorous search for large and
small truths. Our association goes back many years, principally because
he came to Bell Labs every few years to stir things up. One of these
visits resulted in our paper on what became known as the Gordon-Haus
effect. Hermann came along asking critical questions about light wave
soliton transmission, and in this case I had an answer. Hermann was
not always right, but as my old boss, Rudy Kompfner, was fond of saying,
if you are always right you are not being adventurous enough. If your
time is up, a swift passage is a good way, but now is never the right
time. My wife, Susie, and I were very fond of Hermann and Lennie, and
we will miss him.”
"At MIT, Hermann Haus was renowned as an outstanding
teacher - writing textbooks and teaching undergraduate as well as graduate
courses in each of the last six decades. He wrote 7 books, obtained
20 patents, and published over 380 papers - an astounding 200 of them
since the age of 65. Hermann received MIT's Killian award, the highest
award the faculty confers on one of its own, and he was appointed Institute
Professor, MIT's highest faculty position. We have many distinguished
faculty but not many whom have been elected to the National Academy
of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hermann was more than just a great scientist/engineer,
he awed us with his knowledge of languages, history and the arts - and
with his energy and enthusiasm for life. His death is an enormous loss
to MIT, to our profession and to all of us who knew him personally."
Prof. Hermann Haus will be remembered in history for
his eye opening contributions to optics and his ever-energetic presence
that has inspired many of today’s optical leaders. As a vibrant
IEEE LEOS member, he will be greatly missed. On behalf of the officers,
staff, and members of the IEEE LEOS international community, sincere
condolences to Prof. Haus’s family and friends on this eternal
loss. In memory of Prof. Haus, donations may be made to MIT, Hermann
Haus Fund, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307.
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