Background

Athelstan Spilhaus was born on November 25, 1911 in Cape Town, South Africa; the son of Karl Antonio and Nellie (Muir) Spilhaus. He came to the United States in 1931 and was naturalized in 1946.

Education

Spilhaus attended schools in the United Kingdom, but returned to South Africa and was admitted to the University of Capetown at the age of 15. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1931. Later Athelstan immigrated to the United States to study aerodynamics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a student of Charles Stark Draper, Carl Rossby and others. He received his master's degree in aerodynamics in 1933 and went on to study meteorology for two years, finishing his degree work in 1935. He received his doctorate from the University of Cape Town in 1948.

Career

Early in his career, after he left his native South Africa for the United States, Athelstan Spilhaus joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a research assistant. He took a similar post at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1936, rising to the investigator in physical oceanography in 1938 and associate and honorary staff member in 1960. Spilhaus also began teaching at New York University in 1937 and became chair of the department of meteorology in 1938 and director of research in 1946.

Spilhaus invented the bathythermograph to record temperatures in the deep ocean. It was used during World War II to help Allied forces determine sonar readings. He was asked to take part in geophysical studies and design balloons that would float up and monitor atmospheric waves. The balloons became part of an Air Force system used to spy on Soviet nuclear testing, but part of the apparatus crashed in eastern New Mexico in 1947. Some people believed - and still do - that the weather balloon story is a government coverup. They contend that the debris was from an alien ship that crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. The Air Force continues to deny the allegation. Spilhaus continued his work and received his appointment to UNESCO under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He had joined the staff of the University of Minnesota in 1949 and returned to the school after four years with UNESCO. In addition to teaching physics at the university, he served as dean of the school's Institute of Technology. He also proposed building covered walkways - called skyways - that would serve as passageways between buildings during the cold Minnesota winters. Some were built in Minneapolis in the 1950s. During his career, he also dabbled in toymaking and worked on three thousand types of children's toys. After making contributions to the study of geophysics and meteorology, Spilhaus was named the first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1954.

In 1962 he was asked by President John F. Kennedy to oversee the creation of the U.S. exhibit at the World's Fair in Seattle. In 1967 he became president of the Franklin Institute only to leave in 1969 to hold the same position with Aqua International, Inc. Other career posts included working as director of Pergamon Press, serving as special assistant to the administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, chairing the American Newspaper Publishers Association's scientific advisory committee, and teaching at schools such as the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Southern California. Among his other inventions are the Spilhaus space clock and other instruments used in oceanography, aviation, and meteorology. In 1963 he also put forth the idea of the national Sea Grant program. He wrote various books, including Workbook in Meteorology (with James E. Mai Miller), Report on the Meteorological Services for the Union of South Africa, Daring Experiments for Living, Mechanical Toys: How Old Toys Work, Atlas of the World with Geophysical Boundaries, and Stories from a Snowy Meadow. He also penned several children's books: Weathercraft, Satellite of the Sun, and The Ocean Laboratory. Spilhaus created the illustrated strip about science, called "Our New Age," which appeared in newspapers from 1958 to 1973.

Achievements

• A man of many talents, Spilhaus wrote 11 books, published more than 300 articles, and is credited with many inventions, among them the bathythermograph, the Spilhaus Space Clock and a jigsaw puzzle of the Earth's surface. He is also credited with proposing the establishment of Sea Grant Colleges at a meeting of the American Fisheries Society in 1963 as a parallel to the successful land-grant colleges.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Mechanical Toys: How Old Toys Work 1989
  • The Ocean Laboratory 1967
  • Satellite of the Sun: The Science of the Earth and Its Surroundings 1958
  • Atlas of the World with Geophysical Boundaries 1991
  • Weathercraft 1951

Membership

Athelstan Spilhaus was a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Academy of Sciences, and American Philosophical Society Clubs - Cosmos and Bohemian.

Personality

Physical Characteristics: Athelstan Spilhaus died of chronic pulmonary disease.

Connections

Spilhaus was married to Kathleen Ann Fitzgerald Spilhaus. He had five children from a previous marriage, thirteen grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Father:

Karl Antonio Spilhaus

(born December 11, 1876 - died after 1960)

Mother:

Nellie (Muir) Spilhaus

(born July 8, 1878)

child:

Athelstan F. Spilhaus

child:

Mary Muir Spilhaus

child:

Eleanor Spilhaus

child:

Margaret Ann Spilhaus

child:

Karl Henry Spilhaus

late spouse:

Kathleen Ann Fitzgerald Spilhaus

(July 14, 1912 - December 22, 1994)