The gallery is the second and largest of the rooms, and it is devoted to the technological innovations that Viterbi pioneered. Glass-encased displays, designed by Howard Sherman and Associates, document key moments in the young scholar’s career with photographs, papers and magazine articles about his work.

 

Viterbi and a handful of other prominent pioneers in satellite communication were featured on the cover of a 1958 issue of Life magazine as they studied transmissions in the control room of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite to orbit earth. Viterbi’s groundbreaking paper in 1967 describing an algorithm that would eliminate much of the interference in satellite communications at the time – the Viterbi algorithm – is also part of the collection.  Additional display cases feature many of the electronics that revolutionized cellular communications.

 

The gallery ceiling features a second Chia mural, which is meant to convey Viterbi’s fascination with the spacelessness of wireless communications.  Two “knife-edged” soffits extend outward toward the center of the ceiling, like the underside of a roof overhang, without touching each other. The soffits create a space above the ledge that is illuminated with white lights, allowing visitors to peer over and beyond the horizon.