Rudolph kompfner

(1909-1977)

“There is nothing like a goodly amount of dissatisfaction and unhappiness to bring on invention.”

TWTs have been used in a variety of electronic applications and are part of the farthest flung ¹ human machines, spacecraft, which are becoming mankind's first interstellar ambassadors.

The travelling-wave tube was invented by Kompfner in his spare time. Officially, he was working at the University of Birmingham as part of the war effort in World War II, trying to improve the klystron amplifier for use in radar receivers. It was in the same department that Randall and Boot invented the cavity magnetron. Whilst Kompfner's official work was leading nowhere, his evening hobby was heading for the jackpot. As Kompfner himself wrote, "I must emphasise again that all this work was carried on outside the laboratory; it was, so to speak, my spare-time amusement."

Architect

Kompfner was known as Rudi. "Few who knew him knew him as Kompfner or Dr Kompfner, and none as Rudolph," says J. R. Pierce, the American physicist who worked with him for many years. Rudi was born on the 16th May, 1909 in Vienna, the elder child, and only son, of Bernhard Kompfner and his wife Paula Grotte. Bernhard was an accountant, but also an accomplished musician who composed Viennese songs and waltzes. Rudi inherited a lifetime love of music.

World War I raged whilst Kompfner was a young boy and Vienna was blockaded. Suffering from malnutrition², he was evacuated by the Red Cross and put on a train to Sweden. His parents, apparently, did not know exactly where he was and it must have been a nightmare for them and for him. World War II was also to have troubles in store, but before that there were happier times. He graduated in 1931 from the Technische Hochschule in Vienna with a degree in engineering (architecture). Two years later, in his mid twenties, he completed his studies of architecture in Vienna.

The 1930s were dangerous times for Jews in Austria, but Kompfner had a cousin in England. Her husband helped him to get to England in 1934 and then found him a job. From 1936 to 1941, Rudi Kompfner was the managing director of Franey's building firm.

By that time, Kompfner's interest had been well and truly awakened in physics, as well as architecture. In fact, it would appear that architecture was never his first choice; it has been dictated by his father. His interest in physics, however, was self-generated and was sparked by the writings of the French physicist Arago, an early 19th century contemporary of Ampere.

One oft-repeated ³ story of Kompfner's training as an architect is worth one more repetition because it has a lesson for anyone. Kompfner had been told to design a house and he sat and stared at his blank sheet for hours without drawing a stroke. "An infinity of possible solutions to the problem occurred to me, but I could not see why I should single out any particular one by starting with it." A senior arhitect came to help and simply drew a square. When Kompfner objected to the square as an unlikely shape for a house it was changed. When the change was criticised it, too, was changed, and so on. Gradually an acceptable design evolved. "The secret of starting," he had learned, "is to start." "Starting means at least doing something."