The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : A pioneer with verve for life

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Sunday, Oct 12, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

A pioneer with verve for life

Walter Kistler.

Physicist, inventor and philanthropist Walter Kistler likes to take up challenges. At 65, he went sky diving; at 68, he climbed the Matterhorn Mountain; and at 90, he goes skiing. Ever alert and looking for something interesting, Mr. Kistler has more than 50 patents to his credit. He is also listed in ‘American Men of Science’ and ‘Who’s Who in Aviation’. Deepa H Ramakrishnan caught up with Mr. Kistler, who speaks about his life in the Swiss Army, his love for space and rockets, his inventions and his penchant to do something for the world.

He gave up pursuing a degree in medicine half way to take up engineering. “My interest was in technical devices… not in human devices. I had taken medicine because my grand uncle, Kocher, was a Nobel Prize winning doctor, and there were other relatives in the field.” Medicine’s loss was engineering’s gain. He pioneered a new measurement technology using piezoelectric quartz crystals. “There was a need for such an instrument at that point of time, but nobody could quite make it. It was a challenge, and I had a very high opinion of myself and so told my boss that it would be ready in six months; instead it took me 6 years…”

The son of an advocate, Mr. Kistler left his native Switzerland, his job and other comforts to go to the U.S. “I had everything in Switzerland… everything except a wife. As space and rockets were and are still my hobbies, I knew Switzerland would never make rockets, so I went to the U.S. Though my dream of going into space never materialised, I got a very nice wife.”

When he went to the U.S. in 1950, he had no job. “But I found Americans to be very kind and helpful. So I wanted to do something for them.” He started two profit-making companies , and with the money he made—which neither he nor his wife wanted to keep for themselves—started the non-profit, Foundation For the Future, dedicated to promoting research in factors that may impact the quality of human life in future. A man, who believes in jotting down important events in a diary, Mr. Kistler has kept 20 volumes in his own shorthand—Newrite that is based on phonetics. “I have never invented Newrite to be taught to others. But it was my secretary who said that since I had spent several years to fine-tune it, I must give it to the public. We are now teaching deserving students of various schools free. It helps you write at the speed of thought and lets you write in just one-fourth of the time taken for cumbersome longhand.”

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