Warren Perry Mason

Life & Legacy

Warren Perry Mason (September 28, 1900 – August 23, 1986) was an American electrical engineer and physicist at Bell Labs. A graduate of Columbia University, he had a prolific output, publishing four books and nearly a hundred papers. He was issued over two hundred patents, more than anyone else at Bell Labs. His work included acoustics, filters, crystals and ceramics, materials science, polymer chemistry, ultrasonics, bonding to semiconductors, internal friction, and viscoelasticity.
Mason founded the field of distributed-element circuits. He was the first to experimentally show viscoelasticity in individual molecules. He found experimental evidence of electron-phonon coupling in solids and made measurements that aided the theories of phonon drag and superconductivity. Many of Mason's inventions in electronics are still widely used by modern circuit designers.