Peaceful coexistence

ONE DAY IN 2003, JOSEPH SCHULMAN FACED A half-dozen or so military officers in a cheerless high-rise office outside the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C. He was 68 then, with piercing blue eyes and a full head of hair dyed chestnut. People who knew him called him a "visionary" and a "mad, brilliant scientist." For nearly 20 years, he had been president of the Alfred Mann Foundation, a medical research center in Santa Clarita, Calif., known for developing cutting-edge electronic aids, including pacemakers and cochlear implants. Normally a self-assured guy, Schulman suddenly felt, he says, "a little frightened." · He had come to what was then the Defense Spectrum Office to present his case for allowing a new medical technology to use some of the radio frequencies assigned to the U.S. military. He began by pulling from his pocket several small ceramic cylinders, which he passed around.