He worked as a machinist for a year before attending the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics in 1931 and in 1933 a PhD with a dissertation on "The Infrared Spectrum and the Structure of the Carbon Dioxide Molecule".
[2][4] Beginning in 1933, he did research at the Lowell Observatory, demonstrating that the harmonics of the vibration of methane and ammonia molecules gave rise to the absorption bands observed in planetary atmospheres, and later publishing extensively on the water-vapor-related parameters in Earth's atmosphere.
During World War II, he worked for the US Navy in Washington, DC, de-gaussing submarines,[4] and from 1942 to 1946 was a faculty member in physics at the University of Michigan.
From 1946 to 1948 he was an assistant professor at the McMath-Hulbert Solar Observatory, then operated by the university, while also studying the effective radiation temperature of the ozone layer for the US Air Force at a base in New Mexico.
[4] Among other achievements, he discovered the 20 micron window in the Earth's atmosphere and proved observationally that the Moon radiates as a black body.