Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin - Studies in America, and Ph.D

Studies in America, and Ph.D

For next five years in the USA Pupin worked as a manual laborer (most notably, at the biscuit factory on Cortlandt Street in Manhattan) and meanwhile he was learning English, Greek and Latin. He also gave private lectures. After three years of various courses, in the autumn of 1879 he successfully finished the tests and entered Columbia College in 1879, where he became known as an exceptional athlete and scholar.

A friend of Pupin's predicted that his physique would make him a splendid oarsman, and that Columbia would do anything for a good oarsman. A popular student, he was elected president of his class in his Junior year. He graduated with honors in 1883 and became an American citizen at the same time.

He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Berlin under Hermann von Helmholtz, and in 1889 returned to Columbia University to become a lecturer of mathematical physics in the newly formed Department of Electrical Engineering. Pupin's research pioneered carrier wave detection and current analysis.

Pupin completed his studies in 1883 as one of the best students, especially in the field of physics and mathematics, which gave him a diploma. Later, he went back to Europe, initially the United Kingdom (1883–1885), where he continued his schooling at the University of Cambridge.

Pupin was the first in the United States to make an image with X-rays. As soon as he learned of the Rentgen's discovery of unknown rays passing through things like wood, paper, insulators and thin metals, leaving traces on the photographic plate, Pupin took a vacuum tube, of which he studied the passage of electricity through rarefied gases and on January 2, 1896 made successful images. By placing fluorescent curtain in front of the film, Pupin has shortened the exposure time in twenty times, of one hour to a few minutes. Based on the results of experiments, he concluded that the impact of primary X-rays generated secondary X-rays. With his work in the field of X-rays, Pupin gave a lecture at the New York Academy of Sciences.

Pupin was also the first to use X-rays for medical purposes. When he was a New York surgeon Dr. Bal sent a patient for an x-ray, which would need to be operated on his left hand full of lead shot balls. The first attempt at shooting failed because the patient was "weak and nervous to be stood still nearly an hour" which is the time it took to get a photo x-ray at the time. In another attempt, the Pupin - Edison fluorescent screen was placed on a photographic plate and the patient's hand on the screen. X-rays were first directed at the screen and from the screen its fluorescent light on a photographic plate. It Obtained a fairly good image with exposure of only a few seconds and showed a number of cells that were shot as "drawn with pen and ink." Dr. Bal was able to take out all of the lead balls in a very short time. Thus, the patient, a lawyer, entered into radiological history. It was the first image obtained using X-rays, and in this way, the first operation, in America, where according to a photo x-ray image, decide its outcome.