Abstract:
Curt Holmer was well known to me while I was a graduate student in England through the chapter in Noise and Vibration Control that he co-wrote with Istvan Ver. In a book that may be the most commonly referred to on acoustics, his was the chapter that I found most useful for both its qualitative and quantitative insights. When I came to Purdue in 1984 it was a pleasant surprise to find both that Curt was working nearby in Indianapolis and that he had an interest in noise control foams of the type that I had studied during my Ph.D. I soon found an opportunity to invite myself down to meet him at EAR, and, like many others before, discovered him to be a gracious and generous host. We became good friends, and over the next decade he actively encouraged my interest in both theoretical and practical aspects of noise control foams (even though when we first met he gently revealed that EAR was already selling a product based on what I had thought was my own ``revolutionary'' insight: see title). In this presentation, progress in the area of foam modeling over the time that I knew Curt will be reviewed.