The Howland Current Pump Circuit

In August of 1950 I was hired to do research on speech recognition by Jerry Wiesner who then
headed the MIT Research Lab of Electronics (RLE). While I made considerable progress in
developing analog vowel recognition circuits, severe writers block resulted in no publication of
my results. In 1951, without permission, I joined the group, also at RLE, of Dr. Jerry Lettvin, a
genuine genius, who was also a neurologist, psychiatrist, neurophysiologist and certainly the
wisest man I have ever worked with. One of my tasks was to design a circuit that could deliver
a known current stimulation to a nerve regardless of the impedance of the load. A monstrous
circuit using highly microphonic pentodes suspended by rubber bands, which Jerry dubbed
Mahatmas Tomb worked but was not esthetically satisfying.
It was the need for a better current stimulator that led to the later op-amp circuit. After being let
go from RLE in 1955, and a year off trying to develop an invention, I was hired by an early
artificial intelligence group under the direction of Oliver Selfridge at the MIT Lincoln Lab, in
Lexington MA. Since our group had no clear objective, we were able to work on just about any
project we wished. The great advantage of the military financed Lincoln Lab over RLE was that
we had money to spare and I was able to acquire a set of eight Philbrick op-amps in a rack. I
used this to simulate and photograph on a scope the action of an automatic two-dial impedance
bridge balancer which would have worked perfectly. The Philbrick module was so popular that
people were, in my absence, constantly disassembling my circuits to use the op-amps for their
own purpose, without first copying my circuit diagrams.
One day in 1958 or 1959 I called Mr. Philbrick, GAP himself (his initials appeared on the boxes
that op-amps came in), and I informed him that I had two promising new circuits. He kindly
invited me to lunch at the elegant Copley Plaza Hotel, the only time I ever ate there. Two of his
assistants from their nearby Columbus Ave. lab accompanied him.
The first, and my favorite, circuit simulated the charge-storage properties of a contemporary
solid-state diode; this in conjunction with an inductor could generate large high harmonic
energy pulses. The action depended on the kick of the inductor when it was excited by a sine
wave and was carrying a considerable current and the diode suddenly ran out of stored charge,
the reverse current dropping to zero.
The above was my prize circuit, but my fallback excuse for a free lunch was the four-resistor
current-pump circuit. The resistors formed a balanced Wheatstone bridge and the output was
taken off one of the inputs to the op-amp. The need for such a circuit was inspired by my earlier
flawed neuro-stimulator at RLE from five years before.
To my surprise and dismay, Mr. Philbrick showed little interest in my charge-storage diode
simulator but he was enthusiastic at my voltage-to-current bidirectional current pump circuit.
He generously stated that while they were working on something quite similar, Ill give you
credit for solving the problem, he commented. He could plainly see that it would work.

Because of my indolent ways and my inability to evaluate my own work, I never published
either of the two circuits. And so I forgot about the current pump until it appeared later in
Philbricks famous Palimpsest under the name of The Howland circuit.
A later textbook by John I Smith (Wiley/ Interscience 1971, pp155-159) gives an extended
discussion of the original four resistor circuit. It is my fault for there being no original
publication of this circuit.
However, I should like to state here a strategy which I recommend to all future inventors: Since
it is very difficult to evaluate the worth of ones ideas at the time, the only safe strategy is to
make a maximal effort to publish all of ones ideas. An unorthodox method, which I later found
to be both useful and time saving, was to file a patent (with all expenses paid by the lab) and
use this as a refereed vanity publication with the lawyer doing all of the write-up.
I am, of course, greatly indebted to George Philbrick, a giant of the analog world, both for
bringing the circuit to light and generously crediting me with it.
As a postscript I relate this following amusing incident: About ten years after my meeting with
Philbrick I had largely abandoned electronics and was working in optics for the Lincoln Labs
satellite group when one of Prof. Roberges young, hot-shot, MIT trained analogue circuit
designers asked me: Are you the inventor of the Howland Circuit? I said, Yes. He replied,
Well, I dont believe it. You just arent smart enough to have done it. Happily, I did not
answer him and in the thirty-five years since I still havent been able to think of a suitable reply.