engineering

Wilbur Davenport

Wilbur Davenport is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wilbur Davenport rather than just read about it. In short: Wilbur B. Davenport Jr.

Key takeaways

Wilbur Davenport belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wilbur Davenport to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wilbur Davenport from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wilbur B. Davenport Jr. (July 27, 1920 – August 28, 2003) was a professor emeritus of communication science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Early life and education Davenport earned his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn University in 1941 where he was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity. He received his master's degree in 1943 from MIT and then served from 1943 to 1946 in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a lieutenant (junior grade). He returned to MIT and earned his Ph.D. in 1950, just after being named an assistant professor at the institute in 1949.

Career He became a full professor from 1960 to 1982. From 1951 he worked with Lincoln Lab as leader of the research group on communications technology. In 1961 he was appointed associate head of the Research Laboratory of Electronics before returning to the Lincoln Lab in 1963. While at the RLE he worked on the spread spectrum techniques on secure communications. In 1974 he was appointed to head MIT's Electrical Engineering Department. While serving as department head he oversaw a curriculum change for computer students and a department name change to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He stepped down from the position after four years. During this time he was a director for the GenRad Corporation from 1974 to 1982. After retiring from M.I.T. he moved to Honolulu, Hawaii and became a visiting professor of electrical engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa until 1987. He moved to Sunriver, Oregon in that year.

Publications and awards In 1952 the Journal of Applied Physics published a paper he co-authored titled Statistical Errors in Measurements on Random Time Functions. This was the first of several papers on statistical theory. In the early 1960s the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America published his paper An Experimental Study of Speech-Wave Probability Distribution. His published books included Probability and Random Processes (1975) and An Introduction to the Theory of Random Signals and Noise with William L. Root (1958). Davenport was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (1975) and received the IEEE Pioneer Award (1981) for his spread spectrum research with Paul E. Green, Mortimer Rogoff and Louis A. deRosa. Prof. Davenport's doctoral adviser was Prof. Robert Fano. His notable students: Prof. Victor On-Kwok Li and George L. Turin. He was married to his wife, Joan. They had two children, Mark and Sally.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wilbur Davenport

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wilbur Davenport claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wilbur Davenport before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wilbur Davenport ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wilbur Davenport

In research: Wilbur Davenport appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wilbur Davenport in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wilbur Davenport is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1920 births, 2003 deaths, American scientist stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wilbur Davenport outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wilbur Davenport in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wilbur Davenport means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wilbur Davenport out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wilbur Davenport in simple terms?

Wilbur B. Davenport Jr.

Why does Wilbur Davenport matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wilbur Davenport?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wilbur Davenport.