William Rae Young, Jr. (October 30, 1915 – March 7, 2008) was one of the

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

engineers that invented the

cell phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

. The history of cellular phone technology began on December 11, 1947 with a Bell Labs internal memo written by Douglas H. Ring describing the idea of Rae Young of the

hexagonal In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A regular hexagon is d ...

cell concept for a cellular mobile telephone system.

Career

Young graduated from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

in 1937 with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering. After graduation, Young began working at

in what became his lifetime employment. Young did research and development for Bell Labs in the fields of radar, television, communication systems, and top-secret military systems. Young lived and worked in New York City for many years until he and his family moved to

Summit, New Jersey Summit is the northernmost City (New Jersey), city of Union County, New Jersey, Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located within the New York metropolitan area. Situated on a ridge in north Jersey, northern–central Jersey, centra ...

from which he commuted by train to New York City. During 1942 to 1945, Young worked on radar and communication systems for the US Armed Services. In 1945, Young began work on mobile radiotelephone systems in vehicles for coverage of urban areas and along highways. He developed systems for reducing interference between mobile systems that are closely spaced in frequency and location. Young served as chairman of a Radio Manufacturers Association (RMA) subcommittee TR8.9 on systems standards for mobile communications equipment. In 1947, W. Rae Young proposed what are now called cell phones in a report to the RMA Systems Committee.page 3 of D. H. Ring's report Coworker Douglas H. Ring at Bell Labs, liked Young's idea about locating many mobile phone towers in a hexagonal cellular arrangement throughout each city so that every mobile phone user would be able to communicate from at least one cell through the telephone system. Douglas Ring credited W. Rae Young with suggesting the hexagonal cell layout and expanded on Rae Young's concept in another internal Technical Memo dated 11 December 1947. In 1951, Young was appointed supervisor of the cellular systems engineering team and later became department head of cellular mobile phone development at Bell Labs. In the 1950s, Young was transferred to another Bell Labs facility at

Murray Hill, New Jersey Murray Hill is an unincorporated community located within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County, in the northern portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the longtime central location of Bell ...

where he worked on communications systems and formulated requirements for design of telephone switching systems and data-transmission systems. In 1962, he was transferred to another Bell Labs facility at Holmdel, New Jersey. In 1964, W. Rae Young was made an

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

Fellow “for contributions to mobile radio and data communications systems”. After working for Bell Labs for 47 years, he retired in June 1979.

Family

Rae Young Jr. was born in Lawton, Michigan, a small rural town. He was the eldest of 4 children: 3 boys and a girl. Rae's father William Rae Young Sr. was a medical doctor. Rae's mother Elizabeth Emerson was also college educated and was descended from the

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of th ...

family. In February, 1937 Rae Young Jr. married Mary Lou Traywick (1915–1975) during their senior year at the University of Michigan. They had three children: Roy, Susan, and Barbara, each of whom earned a doctorate degree. Rae Young Jr. played piano, clarinet, cello, and bass with the Summit Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and the Monmouth Symphony Orchestra for over 40 years. Rae's wife Mary Lou died from cancer just before her 60th birthday. In 1980, Rae met a widow Betty Wood, a retired crystallographer from Bell Labs. For the next 27 years Rae and Betty were constant companions until her death in March 2006. Rae was 92 when he died.

Publications of Rae Young

* "Interference between VHF Radio Communications Circuits". ''IRE Proceedings'', July 1948. * "Ratio of Frequency Swing to Phase Swing in Phase and Frequency Modulation Systems Transmitting Speech", by D. K. Gannett and W. R. Young, ''IRE Proceedings'', March 1949. * "Echos in Transmission at 450 Mc. Hzfrom Land to Car Radio Units", W. R. Young and L. Y. Lacy, ''IRE Proceedings'', March 1950. * "Comparison of Mobile Radio Transmission at 150, 450, 900 & 3700 mc" Hz ''Bell System Technical Journal'', vol 32, pages 1068–1085, November 1952. * "AMPS: Introduction, Background, and Objectives", ''Bell System Technical Journal'', vol. 58, 1, pages 1–14, January 1979.

References

Patents of W. Rae Young

* -- ''Cellular High Capacity Mobile Radio Telephone System'', filed April 28, 1980 Young was granted more than 14 patents.

External links

1947 memo by D. H. Ring in which W. Rae Young is credited with the hexagonal cells concept (on page 3)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, W. Rae 1915 births 2008 deaths University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni 20th-century American inventors Fellows of the IEEE