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Doc Edgerton

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Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990), also known as Papa Flash, was an American scientist and researcher, a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1] He is largely credited with transforming the stroboscope from an obscure laboratory instrument into a common device. He also was deeply involved with the development of sonar and deep-sea photography, and his equipment was used in collaboration with Jacques Cousteau in searches for shipwrecks and even the Loch Ness Monster.[2]

Harold Eugene Edgerton
Edgerton in 1963
BornApril 6, 1903 (1903-04-06)
Fremont, Nebraska
DiedJanuary 4, 1990(1990-01-04) (aged 86)
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Alma materUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln (BS, Electrical Engineering, 1925)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MS, Electrical Engineering, 1927; ScD, Electrical Engineering, 1931)
Known forStroboscope
AwardsSPIE Gold Medal (1981)
Scientific career
FieldsEngineering/photography
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology

Biography

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Early years

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Edgerton was born in Fremont, Nebraska, on April 6, 1903, the son of Mary Nettie Coe and Frank Eugene Edgerton,[3][4] a descendant of Samuel Edgerton, the son of Richard Edgerton, one of the founders of Norwich, Connecticut, and Alice Ripley,[5] a great-granddaughter of Governor William Bradford (1590–1657) of the Plymouth Colony and a passenger on the Mayflower. His father was a lawyer, journalist, author and orator and served as the assistant attorney general of Nebraska from 1911 to 1915. Edgerton grew up in Aurora, Nebraska. He also spent some of his childhood years in Washington, DC, and Lincoln, Nebraska.

Education

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A 1936 picture of May Rogers Webster with hummingbirds

In 1925 Edgerton received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he became a member of Acacia fraternity.[6] He earned an SM in electrical engineering from MIT in 1927. Edgerton used stroboscopes to study synchronous motors for his ScD thesis in electrical engineering at MIT, awarded in 1931. He credited Charles Stark Draper with inspiring him to photograph everyday objects using electronic flash; the first was a stream of water from a faucet.

In 1936 Edgerton visited hummingbird expert May Rogers Webster. He was able to illustrate with her help that it was possible to take photographs of the birds beating their wings 60 times a second using an exposure of one hundred thousandth of a second. A picture of her with the birds flying around her appeared in National Geographic.[7]

Career

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Nuclear explosion captured by Edgerton's Rapatronic camera
 
Shadowgraph of bullet in flight using Edgerton's equipment and stroboscope

In 1937 Edgerton began a lifelong association with photographer Gjon Mili, who used stroboscopic equipment, in particular, multiple studio electronic flash units, to produce photographs, many of which appeared in Life magazine. When taking multiflash photographs this strobe light equipment could flash up to 120 times a second. Edgerton was a pioneer in using short duration electronic flash in photographing fast events photography, subsequently using the technique to capture images of balloons at different stages of their bursting, a bullet during its impact with an apple, or using multiflash to track the motion of a devil stick, for example.

He was awarded a bronze medal by the Royal Photographic Society in 1934, the Howard N. Potts Medal from the Franklin Institute in 1941,[8] the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1966,[9] the David Richardson Medal by the Optical Society of America in 1968,[10] the Albert A. Michelson Medal from the same Franklin Institute in 1969,[11] and the National Medal of Science in 1973.[12]

Edgerton partnered with Kenneth J. Germeshausen to do consulting for industrial clients. Later Herbert Grier joined them. The company name "Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier" was changed to EG&G in 1947. EG&G became a prime contractor for the Atomic Energy Commission and had a major role in photographing and recording nuclear tests for the US through the fifties and sixties. For this role Edgerton and Charles Wykoff and others at EG&G developed and manufactured the Rapatronic camera.

His work was instrumental in the development of side-scan sonar technology, used to scan the sea floor for wrecks. Edgerton worked with undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau, by first providing him with custom-designed underwater photographic equipment featuring electronic flash, and then by developing sonar techniques used to discover the Britannic. Edgerton participated in the discovery of the American Civil War battleship USS Monitor. While working with Cousteau, he acquired the nickname "Papa Flash". In 1988 Doc Edgerton worked with Paul Kronfield in Greece on a sonar search for the lost city of Helike, believed to be the basis for the legend of Atlantis.[13]

Edgerton co-founded EG&G, Inc., which manufactured advanced electronic equipment including side-scan sonars and sub-bottom profiling equipment. EG&G also invented and manufactured the Krytron, the detonation trigger for the hydrogen bomb, and an EG&G division supervised many of America's nuclear tests.

In addition to having the scientific and engineering acumen to perfect strobe lighting commercially, Edgerton is equally recognized for his visual aesthetic: many of the striking images he created in illuminating phenomena that occurred too fast for the naked eye now adorn art museums worldwide. In 1940, his high speed stroboscopic short film Quicker'n a Wink won an Oscar.[14]

Edgerton was appointed a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1934.[15] At MIT Edgerton created a technology lab nicknamed Strobe Alley, considered by author Pagan Kennedy as a forerunner of the Hackerspace. This lab and its encouragement of tinkering and invention influenced the careers of MIT students such as Martin Klein, who contributed to the development of side scan sonar.[16]

In 1956, Edgerton was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[17] He became a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1964 and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1972.[18][19] He was especially loved by MIT students for his willingness to teach and his kindness: "The trick to education", he said, "is to teach people in such a way that they don't realize they're learning until it's too late". His last undergraduate class, taught during fall semester 1977, was a freshman seminar titled "Bird and Insect Photography". One of the graduate student dormitories at MIT carries his name.

In 1962, Edgerton appeared on I've Got a Secret, where he demonstrated strobe flash photography by shooting a bullet into a playing card and photographing the result.

Edgerton's work was featured in an October 1987 National Geographic Magazine article entitled "Doc Edgerton: the man who made time stand still".

Family

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After graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Edgerton married Esther May Garrett[20] in 1928. She was born in Aurora, Nebraska, on September 8, 1903, and died on March 9, 2002, in Charleston, South Carolina. She received a bachelor's degree in mathematics, music and education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A skilled pianist and singer, she attended the New England Conservatory of Music and taught in public schools in Aurora, Nebraska and Boston. During their marriage they had three children: Mary Louise (April 21, 1931), William Eugene (8/9/1933), Robert Frank (5/10/1935). His sister, Mary Ellen Edgerton, was the wife of L. Welch Pogue (1899–2003) a pioneering aviation attorney and Chairman of the old Civil Aeronautics Board. The technology writer, journalist, and commentator David Pogue is his great nephew.

Death

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Edgerton remained active throughout his later years, and was seen on the MIT campus many times after his official retirement. He died suddenly on January 4, 1990, at the MIT Faculty Club at the age of 86, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[21]

Legacy

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On July 3, 1990, in an effort to memorialize Edgerton's accomplishments, several community members in Aurora, Nebraska, decided to construct a "Hands-On" science center. It was designated as a "teaching museum", that would preserve Doc's work and artifacts, as well as feature the "Explorit Zone" where people of all ages could participate in hands-on exhibits and interact with live science demonstrations. After five years of private and community-wide fund-raising, as well as individual investments by Doc's surviving family members, the Edgerton Explorit Center was officially dedicated on September 9, 1995, in Aurora.[22]

At MIT, the Edgerton Center, founded in 1992, is a hands-on laboratory resource for undergraduate and graduate students, and also conducts educational outreach programs for high school students and teachers.[23]

Works

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Milk Drop Coronet (1957)
  • Flash! Seeing the Unseen by Ultra High-Speed Photography (1939, with James R. Killian Jr.). Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint.
  • Electronic Flash, Strobe (1970). New York: McGraw-Hill.
  • Moments of Vision (1979, with Mr. Killian). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT. ISBN 0-262-05022-6
  • Sonar Images (1986, with Mr. Killian). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-822651-2
  • Stopping Time, a collection of his photographs, (1987). New York: H.N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1514-6

Photographs

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Some of Edgerton's noted photographs are :

Exhibitions

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Collections

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Edgerton's work is held in the following public collection:

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Gray, Paul E. (April 1991). "Obituary: Harold E. Edgerton". Physics Today. 44 (4): 126–128. doi:10.1063/1.2810095.
  2. ^ "Project History: Harold Edgerton and Side-Scan Sonar". web.mit.edu. Archived from the original on May 23, 2016. Retrieved January 12, 2014.
  3. ^ "The Nebraskana Society". www.usgennet.org.
  4. ^ Frank Eugene Edgerton/Mary Nettie Coe Archived October 23, 2012, at the Wayback Machine – rootsweb
  5. ^ http://lcweb4.loc.gov/service/gdc/scd0001/2007/20070619018ou/20070619018ou.pdf Archived January 18, 2021, at the Wayback Machine [bare URL PDF]
  6. ^ Acacia Fraternity. "Acacia Fraternity: Notable Acacians". Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved October 30, 2008.
  7. ^ "MIT Museum". webmuseum.mit.edu.
  8. ^ "Franklin Laureate Database – Howard N. Potts Medal Laureates". Franklin Institute. Archived from the original on May 2, 2014. Retrieved June 13, 2011.
  9. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  10. ^ "David Richardson Medal". OSA.org. The Optical Society. 2013. Retrieved December 18, 2013.
  11. ^ "Franklin Laureate Database – Albert A. Michelson Medal Laureates". Franklin Institute. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved June 14, 2011.
  12. ^ "The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details | NSF - National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov.
  13. ^ "Archaeological sonar survey, Helike (Aigion, Greece) - Paul Kronfield, 1988". MIT Museum. Retrieved October 5, 2022.
  14. ^ "Popular Interest: 1932–1941 « Harold "Doc" Edgerton". edgerton-digital-collections.org. November 28, 2009. Retrieved November 28, 2009.
  15. ^ "MIT Museum | MIT Museum". mitmuseum.mit.edu.
  16. ^ Kennedy, Pagan (2016). Inventology: how we dream up things that change the world. Boston: Mariner Books. p. 59. ISBN 9780544811928.
  17. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter E" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved April 14, 2011.
  18. ^ "Harold E. Edgerton". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
  19. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
  20. ^ "Esther Edgerton, widow of 'Doc' Edgerton and benefactor of the Institute, dies at 98", MIT News, March 13, 2002
  21. ^ Grundberg, Andy (January 5, 1990). "H. E. Edgerton, 86, Dies. Invented Electronic Flash". The New York Times. Retrieved April 5, 2008.
  22. ^ "Edgerton Explorit Center | About Dr. Edgerton". Archived from the original on August 27, 2012. Retrieved August 24, 2012. Edgerton Explorit Center
  23. ^ Edgerton Center, MIT
  24. ^ a b "Davis Museum at Wellesley College". dms.wellesley.edu. Archived from the original on October 14, 2019. Retrieved December 5, 2019.
  25. ^ Writer, MATTHEW ERIKSON; Courant Staff (April 13, 2006). "TIMELESS ART IN A SPLIT SECOND". courant.com.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ "MIT Museum". webmuseum.mit.edu.
  27. ^ "From the Harvard Art Museums' collections Gussie Moran". www.harvardartmuseums.org.
  28. ^ "eMuseum". ccp-emuseum.catnet.arizona.edu.
  29. ^ "eMuseum". ccp-emuseum.catnet.arizona.edu.
  30. ^ "Multiflash « Harold "Doc" Edgerton".
  31. ^ "DR. HAROLD EDGERTON, Gussie Moran's Tennis Swing, 1949". www.christies.com.
  32. ^ "Harold Edgerton (United States, 1907 – 1990) : Bullet through Banana, 1964, printed 1985" Archived October 24, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
  33. ^ "Flashes of Inspiration: The Work of Harold Edgerton". MIT Museum. Retrieved July 9, 2018.
  34. ^ a b "Seeing the Unseen: Photographs and films by Harold E. Edgerton: 21 July — 5 September 2010". Ikon Gallery. Retrieved March 27, 2017.
  35. ^ a b "Press Release: Seeing the Unseen: Photographs and films by Harold E. Edgerton" (PDF). Ikon Gallery. Retrieved March 27, 2017.
  36. ^ "Dr. Harold E. Edgerton". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved July 9, 2018.
  37. ^ "Harld Eugene Edgerton". International Photography Hall of Fame. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  38. ^ "The Man Who Made Time Stand Still » WAG". WAG. Retrieved October 18, 2023.

Further reading

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  • Bruce, Roger R. (editor); Collins, Douglas, et al., Seeing the unseen : Dr. Harold E. Edgerton and the wonders of Strobe Alley, Rochester, N.Y. : Pub. Trust of George Eastman House; Cambridge, Massachusetts : Distributed by MIT Press, 1994. ISBN 0-935398-21-X
  • PBS Nova series: "Edgerton and His Incredible Seeing Machines". NOVA explores the fascinating world of Dr. Harold Edgerton, electronics wizard and inventor extraordinaire, whose invention of the electronic strobe, a "magic lamp," has enabled the human eye to see the unseen." Original broadcast date: 01/15/85
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