Varian, Sigurd Fergus

SUBJECT AREA: Electronics and information technology, Telecommunications

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b. 4 May 1901 Syracuse, New York, USA

d. 18 October 1961 Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

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American electrical engineer who, with his brother Russell, developed the klystron microwave tube.

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Sigurd Varian left school in 1920 and entered California Polytechnic to study engineering, but he soon dropped out and trained as an electrician, taking up employment with the Southern Californian Edison Company. As a result of working on an airfield he developed an interest in flying. He took lessons and in 1924 bought a First World War biplane and became a "barnstorming" pilot, giving flying displays and joy-rides, etc., to earn his living. Beset by several prolonged bouts of tuberculosis, he used his periods of recuperation to study aerial navigation and to devise navigation instruments. In 1929 he took a permanent job as a pilot for Pan American in Mexico, but in 1935 he went to California to work on electron tubes with his younger brother, Eric. They were soon joined by Russell, and with William Hansen they developed the klystron. For details of this part of his life and the founding of Varian Associates, see under Russell Varian. In later years, his health increasingly poor, he lived in semi-retirement in Mexico, where he died in a plane crash while flying himself home.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Franklin Institute Medal.

Bibliography

1939, with R.S.Varian, "High frequency oscillator and amplifier", Journal of Applied Physics 10:321 (describes the klystron).

Further Reading

J.R.Pierce, 1962, "History of the microwave tube art", Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers 979 (provides background to development of the klystron).

D.Varian, 1983, The Inventor and the Pilot (biographies of the brothers).

KF