Hendrik Wade Bode

Hendrik Wade Bode (/ˈboʊdi/ boh-dee; Dutch: [ˈbodə]; December 24, 1905 – June 21, 1982) was an American engineer, researcher, inventor, author and scientist, of Dutch ancestry. As a pioneer of modern control theory and electronic telecommunications he revolutionized both the content and methodology of his chosen fields of research. His synergy with Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, laid the foundations for the technological convergence of the information age.

He made important contributions to the design, guidance and control of anti-aircraft systems during World War II. He helped develop the automatic artillery weapons that defended London from the V-1 flying bombs during WWII. After the war, Bode along with his wartime rival Wernher von Braun, developer of the V-2 rocket, and, later, the father of the US space program, served as members of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of NASA. During the Cold War, he contributed to the design and control of missiles and anti-ballistic missiles.

He also made important contributions to control systems theory and mathematical tools for the analysis of stability of linear systems, inventing Bode plots, gain margin and phase margin.

Bode was one of the great engineering philosophers of his era. Long respected in academic circles worldwide, he is also widely known to modern engineering students mainly for developing the asymptotic magnitude and phase plot that bears his name, the Bode plot.

His research contributions in particular were not only multidimensional but also far reaching, extending as far as the U.S. space program.