Page 58 - Volume 8, Issue 4 - Winter 2012

(academician) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955. The design and construction of a high intensity sound test facility required sound absorbing material different from the traditional glass fiber or metal gauze mat. Maa conducted many experimental studies and theoretical analyses, and confirmed micro-perforated panels to be durable and effective for high temperatures, high airflow, and high sound intensity. He first presented these results at the National Acoustics Meeting in Beijing in 1973, and pub- lished them in Scientia Sinica (in Chinese) in 1975. Further advanced research work was published in journals in China and abroad, such as the Noise Control Engineering Journal (1987), JASA (1998), and International Journal of Acoustics and Vibration (2007). MPA elements are now widely used as green products in buildings and industries in various coun- tries across Asia and Europe, making them effective alter- natives to conventional absorptive materials in critical applications. In one notable example, transparent micro- perforated absorbers were used in the German Parliament Hall in Bonn in 1993, efficiently solving the existing archi- tectural acoustic problems. Maa is known as the father of fiber-free absorbers, and received the National Science Congress Award in 1978, the National Natural Science Award in 1981, the First Class Prize of Significant Achievement Science and Technology of CAS in 1985, the Gold Medal from the Fraunhofer Society of Germany in 1997, the Ho Leung Ho Lee Science and Technology Progress Award in 1998, and the Second Class Prize of
National Science and Technology Progress in 2005. Professor Maa was one of the founding members of the Technical Committee on Acoustics in the Chinese Society of Physics, later to become the Acoustical Society of China
(ASC), where he served as president (1982-1985) and hon- orary president (1985). He was the founder of the IACAS (1964), and also served as Chairman (1980-2007) and later Honorary Chairman (2007-2012) of the Chinese National Standardization Technical Committee on Acoustics. He had been the Editor-in-Chief of both ACTA ACUSTICA (in Chinese) since its inception in 1964 and the Chinese Journal of Acoustics (in English) since 1984. Maa was elected a Member of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1981, and in 1984 he became a Committee Member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, UNESCO.
Throughout his academic career, Professor Maa authored and co-authored more than 20 books and 200 plus papers on scientific research and engineering education. One of his latest books, “Theoretical Foundation of Modern Acoustics” pub- lished in 2004, systematically reflected his deeper understand- ing of acoustics theory through his own contributions, and dis- cusses new developments of acoustic technology. This book, published when Maa was 89 years of age, has been widely used as a text or main reference book in many universities in China. He supervised more than 40 graduate students, a number of whom have established themselves as highly recognized profes- sors and prominent acoustical scientists throughout the world. Two have gone on to become successful Academicians of CAS. Furthermore, many eminent acousticians in China are his Ph.D. students or advisees.
Professor Maa is survived by his wife, their daughter and son.
Ning Xiang Leo Beranek Jiqing Wang
Murray Strasberg
1917—2012
Murray Strasberg, a physicist who played a critical role in the acoustic design of U.S. Navy submarines, from the U-boat battles of World War II through the undersea showdowns of the Cold War, died of natural causes on Aug. 28 at his residence. He was 95, and is survived by his wife of 68 years.
Dr. Strasberg was born in New York City in 1917. While in high school, he began to demonstrate a technological bent, joining the Physics Club and win- ning an automobile in an “Erector set” contest, producing a working model of a complicated road-making machine. At the College of the City of New York, his interest in music and the “new” field of electronics led to courses in acoustics and communication engineering, in addition to a major in physics and a chemistry
minor. He graduated in 1938 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics.
The Great Depression of the 1930s was still on, and it took several months of job hunting before he found work with a manufacturer of equipment for real-time audio recordings on plastic disks. Shortly thereafter he went to the U.S. Patent Office in Washington. Upon the entry of the United States into World War II, in 1942 he joined the David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB), a newly constructed remote ship design and research facility in Maryland, now known as the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division.
Strasberg’s entire career of roughly 70 years was spent at Carderock’s West Bethesda site, and in view of his many pioneering contributions in naval
54 Acoustics Today, October 2012