Word: thaler
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Wrinkles Ahead. Navy enthusiasts point out that Tepee stations are low-powered and relatively cheap, talk of a system of six stations that would monitor any rocket the Russians set off or atomic bomb that they tested above ground. Thaler himself makes no such claims, recognizes that there are still plenty of wrinkles. "We know the theory and the equipment works.'' said Thaler last week, "and our experiments have been successful from the beginning, but we will have to learn a lot more before we will be able to say we have a system. We have been trying...
...mouse, in this case, is the ionosphere. Says Thaler: "We just don't know enough about the propagation of radio waves through the ionosphere. It is not well understood.'' Other scientists chipped in with equally cautious remarks. "It is not the greatest thing since beer," said one; and an M.I.T. researcher pointed out that "obvious countermeasures [radio jamming] could be used against it." But the Defense Department's careful-going Research Director Herbert York concedes that "the ionospheric backscatter principle is a sound one." Give him a year. Thaler predicted, and he hoped he could...
Tepee has nothing to do with Indians, merely stands for the initials of "Thaler's Project." The physicist more or less backed into long-range detection through his involvement in nuclear testing: now director of the field projects branch of the Office of Naval Research and chairman of the Navy's special weapons effects planning group, he has watched almost every U.S. nuclear test explosion in the past ten years...
Born in Baltimore, William John Thaler majored in physics (but also won prizes in theology and philosophy) at Loyola College, took .his doctorate at Washington's Catholic University of America, where he specialized in ultrasonics. A solid, 6-ft. 190-pounder and father of four. Thaler is a topnotch tennis player, has several times won the state doubles championship. Thaler took his sudden fame calmly. Reporters looking for him at his suburban home in Silver Spring, Md. found he had ducked out to buy his six-year-old son a small green turtle as a replacement...
...Thaler considers the ONR an ideal place for an idea man. "There are so many things going on there," he explains, "and you can find out about them just by walking down the corridor. It stimulates your thinking along oddball lines and keeps you from getting in a rut." The best example of that occurred two years ago, when he read a couple of published papers-one on the backscatter phenomenon, the other on ionized gases-and saw a method of connecting the two subjects that no one had seen before. The result was Project Tepee...