Martin Cooper

Martin Cooper was one of the greatest men to live. He went beyond limits of technology and created something that is used by millions every day. He is a true Renaissance man.

Martin Cooper was born on December 26, 1928 in the big city of Chicago, Illinois to the parents of Arthur and Mary Cooper. As a kid Martin was always taking things apart and inventing them (Martin Cooper).

Martin Cooper with different phones (www.bits.blogs.nytimes.com ())

After graduating from the Illinois Institute of Technology with his Masters and bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1950 (Martin Cooper&Leard), he joined the navy for 4 years. He was fighting in World War II before Motorola offered him a job. As he worked at Motorola, he was inspired. Star Trek inspired him. On the show they used small, hand-held communication devices.

Everyday he would go to work and try to think of a way to make land line phones portable. He was devoted to making this cellular phone. He began working on them in November of 1972.

Cooper with a smartphone ( www.talkandroid.com)

Martin made his first mobile call on April 3, 1973. The phone was 2.5 pounds, 9 inches long, 5 inches deep, and 1.75 inches wide. It was nicknamed "The Brick." It took 10 hours to charge and you could only talk on it for 30 minutes. A mobile phone cost $3,500 in 1983, which is equal to $7,000 today (Martin Cooper).

Martin said, "It pleases me to no end to have had some small impact on people's lives because these phones do make people's lives better." He changed the world in so many ways (Martin Cooper). The cellular phones not have only made people's lives easier because you don't have to be at home or a building to make a call. But it has also saved many, many people's lives, multiple times.

Later in life Martin and his wife, Arlene Harris, founded DynaLLC in 1986. Martin also was the CEO and founder of ArrayComm.

Martin is still alive today and will always have an impact on people's lives. He pushed the limits of technology, and science, and went beyond what was possible at that time to be a Renaissance man.