Welcome to Nyquistian.org

This is a website about the mentorship of Harry Nyquist.

Harry was born in rural Sweden in 1889. He immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He received a Bachelors and Master in Electrical Engineering from the University of North Dakota, and a PhD in Physics from Yale.

Upon graduating from Yale, he went to work at what would become Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He would stay at Bell Labs until retired in the 1950s. During that time, he pioneered dozens of theories regarding the transmission of data.

However, he was also known for his informal mentorship. Bell Labs studied why some researchers filed more patents than others, and they found a correlation among those who spent time with Harry Nyquist (particularly those who had lunch with him). Further study demonstrated that Nyquist provided informal mentorship and idea development to the people around him, effectively magnifying their effectiveness.

This website is an gathering place for information about this aspect of Nyquist’s career and how it might impact our careers.