Martin Cooper facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Martin Cooper
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Cooper in 2007
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| Born | December 26, 1928 |
| Other names | Marty Cooper |
| Education | Illinois Institute of Technology (BS, Electrical Engineering, 1950; MS, Electrical Engineering, 1957) |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | Inventor of the first handheld cellular mobile phone |
| Title | Motorola Founder & CEO of ArrayComm Co-founder and chairman of Dyna LLC |
| Spouse(s) |
Arlene Harris
(m. 1991) |
| Awards | Marconi Prize (2013), ITU 150 Awards (2015) |
Martin Cooper (born December 26, 1928) is an American engineer. He is famous for inventing the first handheld cell phone. He is known as the "father of the cell phone."
On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper made history. He placed the first public call from a portable cell phone. He was on a sidewalk in Manhattan, New York. He called a rival engineer at Bell Labs.
Cooper led the team at Motorola that created this first cell phone. It was very different from the car phones used back then. The cell phone was first shown in 1973. It then took 10 years to make it ready for everyone to buy.
Today, Cooper works with his wife, Arlene Harris. They have started many communications companies together. He is also the chairman of Dyna LLC in Del Mar, California. Cooper also helps advise the U.S. government on communication rules.
In 2010, he was chosen as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. This was for his great work in creating the portable cell phone.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Martin Cooper was born in Chicago. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. He went to the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1950.
After college, he served as a submarine officer. This was during the Korean War. In 1957, he earned his master's degree from IIT. In 2004, he received an honorary doctorate degree from the same university. He is still involved with IIT today.
Career at Motorola
Cooper started working at Motorola in 1954. He was a senior development engineer. He helped create many important products. One of these was a portable police radio system for Chicago in 1967. This system was like an early version of a cell phone.
Inventing the First Cell Phone
By the early 1970s, Cooper was in charge of Motorola's communication systems. He had an idea for a truly portable cell phone in 1973. He believed a phone should be for a person, not a place. He wanted people to have a phone number that followed them.
Motorola's leaders supported Cooper's idea. They spent a lot of money to make it happen. Cooper put together a team that designed the first phone in less than 90 days!
The first phone was called the DynaTAC 8000x. It weighed about 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg). It was 10 inches (25 cm) long. People called it "the brick" or "the shoe" phone. The battery was very heavy. It only allowed 30 minutes of talk time. Then it needed 10 hours to recharge! Cooper joked that the battery life wasn't a problem because you couldn't hold the phone for that long anyway. By 1983, the phone was much lighter.
The First Public Call
On April 3, 1973, Cooper showed off his new phone. He stood on a street in New York City. He made the first public call from a handheld cell phone. He called his main competitor, Dr. Joel S. Engel, at AT&T. Cooper said, "Joel, this is Marty. I'm calling you from a cell phone, a real handheld portable cell phone."
This public demonstration was a huge deal. It showed that phones could be for people, not just cars or homes. Before this, car phones were very big and heavy. Motorola's invention helped make sure that cell phone service would be open to many companies, not just one.
Cooper worked at Motorola for 29 years. He helped create many other technologies. These included pagers, quartz crystals, and two-way radios. He became a Vice-President at Motorola.
Other Companies and Contributions
After Motorola, Cooper and his wife, Arlene Harris, started Dyna LLC in 1986. This company helped launch other new businesses.
GreatCall, Inc.
In 1986, Cooper co-founded Cellular Payphone Inc. (CPPI). This company later became GreatCall, Inc. They created the Jitterbug cell phone. This phone was designed to be simple and easy to use, especially for older people.
Arraycomm
In 1992, Cooper also co-founded Arraycomm. This company develops special software for mobile antennas. Under his leadership, Arraycomm became a leader in "smart antenna" technology. They have hundreds of patents for their inventions.
Cooper's Law
Cooper noticed something interesting about radio communication. He found that the ability to send different radio messages at the same time has grown steadily since 1895. This led him to create Cooper's Law.
Cooper's Law says that the maximum amount of voice calls or data that can be sent using radio waves in an area doubles every 30 months. This means wireless technology keeps getting better and faster over time.
Awards and Recognition
Martin Cooper has received many awards for his work. Some of these include:
- 1984 – IEEE Centennial Medal
- 2009 – Prince of Asturias Award for scientific and technical research
- 2010 – Member, National Academy of Engineering
- 2011 – Webby Award for Lifetime Achievement
- 2013 – Charles Stark Draper Prize, National Academy of Engineering
- 2013 – Marconi Prize
