Dr J Guy Woodward

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Birth: Nov. 19, 1914 Carleton Monroe County Michigan, USA

Death: Aug. 16, 2000 Plainsboro Middlesex County New Jersey, USA

From his obituary:

J. Guy Woodward, Scientist at RCA Labs

J. Guy Woodward of Princeton died Wednesday. He was 85.

Born in Carleton, Mich., he was a member of the technical staff of RCA Laboratories in Princeton for more than 40 years. He received a bachelor's degree from North Central College, Naperville, Ill., a master's of science degree from Michigan State College and a doctorate in physics from Ohio State University.

At RCA, his research Activities concentrated on electronic devices and recording systems. During that time, he was a recipient of three RCA Laboratory Achievement Awards and shared in a special award for the team producing pioneering work in recording video on magnetic tape. His research led to the issuance of seven patents and to more than 40 publications in technical journals. He retired in 1982 with the rank of fellow of the David Sarnoff Center.

Dr. Woodward was a member of Sigma Xi, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the Acoustical Society of America. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and past president and honorary member of the Audio Engineering Society. He received the Emile Berliner Award of the Audio Engineering Society in 1963 and was the recipient of North Central College's Outstanding Alumnus Award in 1973.

He was a member for more than 50 years of the Princeton United Methodist Church, which he served in many capacities. He was also a member of the Old Guard-of Princeton, and had retired from active membership in the Princeton United Methodist choir, the Blawenburg Band and the Princeton Scuba Club. Until his last illness, he was an avid tennis player.

Father of the late Keitha Woodward, he is survived by his wife of 55 years, Ruth Woodward; daughters Marcia Woodward of Greensboro, N.C. and Lenore Brown of Princeton; and grandchildren Christina and Daniel Brown.

• *********************** From Darrell Brown:

Guy was born in the large home built by his grandfather, Dr. Elmer Potter, at what is now 12766 Harris St, Carleton, Michigan. His grandfather had died three years previously, and Guy's parents had moved in afterwards to live with his grandmother. Four years later, in 1918, his family moved to Detroit, where he started school. They moved to Marcellus in 1925, but spent weekdays in Naperville, Illinois, where Guys parents attended seminary, and Guy attended public school. In 1928 the family moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, in time for Guy to start high school there. At his graduation in June, 1932, his father gave the baccalaureate address. He then went back to Naperville to attend North Central College, an experience he valued the rest of his life. He played intervarsity tennis and was part of a humorous bluegrass band called "The Barnyard Four." In 1936 he graduated from NCC with a degree in physics and was accepted into Michigan State as a graduate assistant in the physics department. After finishing there he then went to Ohio State University, where he graduated with a PhD in physics in 1942.

He accepted a job offer from RCA's laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey, and began work in September, 1942. On June 28, 1945, he was married to Ruth Lorraine Errien at Princeton Methodist Church, which is where he met her. His father, Rev. Leon Woodward, performed the wedding. Three daughters were born to them: Keitha, Marcia, and Lenore. Guy sang in the Princeton United Methodist choir for 55 years, and stepped down only a few months before his death, due to difficulty hearing. He retired from the Blawenburg Band at the same time, for the same reason. The band played at his funeral, the final number being "O When the Saints Go Marching In." He was an avid tennis player, and did not quit until one month before his death.

Guy Woodward's interest in electronics began as a boy in the early 1920's when he constructed a crystal radio receiver. His main areas of research and product development were in the prevention of vehicular radio noise, underwater sound, electromechanical feedback devices, musical acoustics, stereophonic sound reproduction, disc-phonograph recording, magnetic tape recording and digital magnetic recording.

Early in WWII he invented the means to suppress the radio static created by engines. This enabled airplanes and other vehicles to operate radio communications, and lets us today listen to a car radio without the sound being drowned out by static when the engine is on. After that he was on the team that developed sonar for ships and for submarine navigation. After the war he was on the team that developed tape recorders, using an idea that had been developed in Germany. He was on the team that invented the 45 rpm record and on one that improved the 33 rpm to become high fidelity and stereo. He also contributed to the development of quadraphonic audio. He played a significant role in the development of video recording and participated in the first public demonstration (in 1953) of a video tape recording of television signals in color and in black-and-white. Prior to that, television studios had to broadcast everything live, but afterwards they could record and edit their programs for broadcast later. Guy also worked on video for home use. In 1965 he was appointed head of recording and electromechanical research, and in 1972 he was appointed "fellow" of the technical staff, which let set his own research goals. As mentioned in his obituary, he published numerous scientific articles and received many awards and accolades for his work. He retired at the end of 1982, when he was 68. He continued, however, to study issues of science and God, and to be an advocate for a theistic worldview among the scientific community.

Guy left his wife Ruth Woodward a substantial estate, on which she lived very comfortably for the rest of her life.

• *************************** The eulogy for Guy, given by a fellow scientist:

To know Guy at all was to know he was a scientist: equipped with a superb intelligence, curiosity, attuned to the invariancies of nature. And yet even that could be overlooked or forgotten owing to his modesty. To be sure, he took justifiable pride in his many scientific accomplishments, exulted in, yes, exulted in the exercise of his brain as much as in the exercise of his body. I attributed his modesty to a due appreciation of the act of knowing itself, a knowledge of knowing that recognized in the act of knowing itself - not in its limitation - the deepest of mysteries, a humility experienced in the reception of light that has traveled from the farthest reaches of the universe, for 12 billion years or more, yet obeys the same laws as the particles which constitute us, a humility that knows that even though the laws of physics should turn out to change over time or be peculiar to our universe, yet that change or that peculiarity will be knowable, its laws determinable, a modesty grounded in a recognition that even if the laws of nature should be codetermining, law-abidingness itself is not self-guaranteed. In his exultation in knowing, in his humility in knowing, Guy was truly a scientist's scientist.

To know Guy at all was also to know that he was a man of deep piety, a piety so firm it did not have be dogmatic, a piety so well grounded it that it did not fear science, a piety so integral to who he was that he did not have to preach it to believe it. Yet, again, you could almost forget he was a Christian, not because he wasn't, but because of his modesty. There are faiths of sweetness and light, of only thinking positively. There are religions of guilt and gloom, of sacrifice and atonement. Guy lived a faith that saw both the blood and the triumph when war will be no more, and it is my guess he was truly humbled even as he was inspired both by the cost and by the crown. What part of that he owed to a father, a minister, and mother, what part to wife and family, what part to this congregation, I could not begin to say, but all parts of it speak of steady and unflinching loyalty to one who loved him before and more than he could love himself and in whose love our best hopes are secure.

I have no stories of Guy to tell you that will last in your memories more than a few years. It is the stories of Princeton's eccentric geniuses, world bankers who couldn't balance their own checkbooks, a brilliant writer who abused a spouse, that will be repeated from generation to generation. Oh, of course, you and I have memories of Guy, of extended discussions in writing of science and religion, of a winning battle with a giant lobster, of Guy the trumpet player, or, for that matter, playing the saw, of Guy the tennis player, of an afternoon of competition with Ed Eicher in very witty humor, of Guy the loyal choir member: all these will dim, all too soon. What is most memorable about Guy - and truly deserves our attention - is that he is not memorable, that in his life he achieved the most elusive and sought end, a unification of knowledge and vital piety whose evidence was joy and modesty. Yet when memory has dimmed, because of who he was, he will yet come to mind as you view the stars or the flowers, he will be part of your experience and at your side as you face the struggles of life, he will be part of that glory toward which you press.

• *************************** Two poems by J. Guy Woodward:

The Philosopher (from The Scientific Monthly, March, 1945)

Say on, philosopher; what have you found? What weighty, abstruse tome would you expound In answer to the queries of a mind That seeks to know the cause and all behind This world and life? Would one be too naive If he, at length, were able to achieve An attitude wherein he views as real The things we see and hear and taste and feel? Or is it just a pattern in the brain, A picture done in five sense-hues, no more? Must earth-trapped men forbid their thoughts to soar Beyond the bounds of bare objective plane?

When you say, "Yes," your colleague answers, "No." And thus the ponderous volumes swell and grow As ratiocination earnestly Endeavors to attain finality By formulating some great argument Which none can answer, none can circumvent. But one thing only have you proved, to wit, This bit, that ex nihilo nihil fit, And Truth is something Man may never know. Yet seek! Perhaps not even this is so.

"The Nature of It" (from The Evangelical Crusader, July 22, 1944)

Who taught the wren his charming trill Why does the jonquil grow that way? Where found the hawk his special skill To soar above? Why do I pray? As springs first crocus, seeking light, Breaks upward through the fertile sod, As wild fowl in unerring flight Wing north each year, so seek I God.

Family links:

Parents:

• Leon Francis Woodward (1890 - 1955)
• Eva Dawn Potter Woodward (1892 - 1985)

Spouse:

• Ruth Lorraine Errien Woodward (1922 - 2009)*

Children:

• Keitha Jane Woodward (1947 - 1967)*

Burial: Sunset Memorial Park Feasterville Bucks County Pennsylvania, USA Plot: Chapel of Memories, Room C-104, Row F

Created by: Darrell Brown Record added: Jul 22, 2012 Find A Grave Memorial# 94055509