The Pivotal Artifact

Its seldom that a single item in a museum collection so clearly represents the turning point in an institutions history, but theres no question that the cavity magnetron plays that role for MIT. When the palm-sized transmitter arrived in 1940, the Institute was a respected engineering school. By the end of World War II, that small instrument had turned MIT into the United States second-largest research and development operationafter the Manhattan Projectand its largest single wartime R&D contractor. By 1945, the Institute had become a renowned research machine, and it never looked back.

The British, who developed the magnetron, knew it could be the heart of a radar system that would help them track enemy planes and ships, but they did not have the research expertise or the industrial strength to develop its potential. So they sent one magnetron to the U.S., along with a group of researchers who began working with MIT engineers in the Radiation Laboratory, which was built solely to support radar development. By the end of the war, the lab had become a hothouse of creativity and interdisciplinary research. When it disbanded in 1945, a firmly entrenched ethos of national service existed at the Institute, as did the infrastructure to support future government research. Today MIT remains one of the countrys largest recipients of government-sponsored research contracts.