Clarence Hickman

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Clarence Nichols Hickman (born August 16, 1889 in Lizton , Indiana , † May 7, 1981 ) was an American physicist . His work in the fields of the military missile , the electric piano , sound recording and archery is well known .

Life

After spending his childhood in the countryside , Hickman attended high school in Jamestown and Waynetown , which he graduated in 1909. In 1914 he earned a Bachelor of Arts at the College in Winona Lake . He taught physics in a high school in New Albany, Indiana . There he met his future wife, Mabel Bigwood; the two married in 1915.

In 1917, Hickman enrolled at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts , where he began working with physics professor and rocket pioneer Robert Goddard . Hickman followed Goddard to California to develop military missiles for the raging First World War in the workshops of the Mount Wilson Observatory . In an accidental explosion of a multi-stage rocket in early August, Hickman lost his thumb and two fingers on his left hand and parts of fingers on his right hand. Despite this disability, he was able to continue researching in Goddard's team. The team developed three prototypes; the smallest rocket, like the bazooka developed later under Hickmann, could even be fired from the shoulder . On November 6, 1918, the demonstration took place in Aberdeen Proving Ground , at which Hickman took over the practical demonstration. Hickman also designed an air-to-air missile . These missiles were supposed to be launched from tubes that were installed under the wings of an aircraft. With the end of World War I, however, all concepts for missile weapons disappeared in the drawer.

In 1919, Hickman moved to the National Bureau of Standards , where he worked with electrical engineering . His only child was born in that year. In 1920 he returned to Clark University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1922 from the physicist Arthur Gordon Webster. received his doctorate.

In 1924 he accepted a job with the American Piano Company . There he improved the electric piano by developing a method of recording the strength of the touch . When the development department was closed in 1930 due to the global economic crisis , he left the company.

In 1929 he published the first scientific work on archery ( English velocity and acceleration of arrows ) and is therefore considered the "father of scientific archery". He used automatic sheet machines, devices for measuring speed and a high-speed camera that he had improved . This camera, which could expose 6,000 images per second, was later also used for rocket tests. With his experimental set-up, Hickman was able to clear up the so-called paradox of archery : he showed that when fired, the arrow bends around the handle of the bow, which can lead to a deviation from the target. He also optimized the bow shape for efficient shooting, examined new materials for the backing (reinforcement of the bow back) and developed a bow sight .

From 1930 Hickman worked for Bell Laboratories . There he developed methods for magnetic recording and worked on the recognition of speech patterns as well as electromechanical switching systems . Hickman developed a tape- based answering machine in 1934 . The telephone company AT&T , owner of Bell Laboratories, kept this development under lock and key for years, fearing that an answering machine would lead to fewer telephone calls .

With the beginning of the Second World War, after 20 years, rocket research came back to the fore for Hickman. He consulted Goddard and, on July 20, 1940 , presented some proposals to Frank B. Jewett , who was also President of Bell Laboratories and Chairman of the newly formed National Defense Research Committee (NDRC). As a result, Hickman was transferred to the "Section H" of the NDRC named after him on July 26, 1940. This department was responsible for the research and development of rocket propelled weapons. The first trials were carried out at the Dahlgren Naval Proving Ground in Virginia. In early 1941 the section moved to the Indian Head Powder Factory in Maryland and eventually to the Allegany Ordnance Plant in Cumberland . From the activities of the Section H later developed Allegany Ballistics Laboratory . Hickman was able to win Leslie Skinner for his team, who as an officer in the US Army in the 1930s was busy continuing the early attempts of Goddard and Hickman. The results of the work of Section H were the anti-tank missile Bazooka , the air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missile M8 and JATO missiles and the prototype of a recoilless gun .

After the war, Hickman went back to Bell Laboratories and in 1950 moved to Sandia National Laboratories . There he worked on nuclear warheads and guided missiles . In 1953 he moved with his wife to New York City , where he worked as a consultant for a while.

Awards

Hickman received various awards. The most important were the Medal for Merit , the highest civilian honor in the United States of America, for his rocket developments, and the John Price Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute for his services to rocket and telephone technology, sound recording and bow making, and the award as Fellow of the American Physical Society .

In 1977 he was inducted into the Archery Hall of Fame .

literature

  • David A. Clary: Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age , Verlag Hachette , 2003, ISBN 9781401398330 [2]
  • JD Hunley: The Development of Propulsion Technology for US Space-Launch Vehicles, 1926-1991 , Verlag Texas A&M University , 2013, ISBN 9781603449878 , pp. 232-233 [3]
  • Steven A. Riess: Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century: An Encyclopedia , Verlag Routledge , 2015, ISBN 9781317459477 , p. 98 [4]
  • US rocket order, development and use in world war II. , Washington, 1946, Joint Board on Scientific Information Policy [5]
  • Mark J. Reardon : Bazooka in: A History of Innovation: US Army Adaptation in War and Peace: US Army Adaptation in War and Peace , Center of Military History (US Army), 2010, ISBN 978-0-16-086722-4 [6]
  • Alf E. Werolin: CLARENCE N. HICKMAN in The AMICA bulletin V 13, No. June 5, 1976, AMICA International Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors' Association [7]
  • Morris Chaklai, Allan Rechtschaffen: Science hits the Bull's Eye in: Popular Mechanics , Vol. 91, No. 3, March 1949, ISSN  0032-4558 pp. 175-177, 252, 254, 256. [8]
  • Tim Wu : The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Informationsimperien , Mitp Publishing , 2012, ISBN 9783826692734 , pp 132-134 [9]

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Clemons: Clarence Hickman and Charles Stoddard papers , 2004
  2. ↑ Clary: Rocket Man , 2003, pp. 101-103 [1]
  3. ↑ US rocket ordnance, 1946, p. 4
  4. ↑ Werolin: CLARENCE N. HICKMAN in: The AMICA bulletin , 1976, archived copy ( memento of the original from July 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.amica.org
  5. ↑ Chaklai, Rechtschaffen: Science hits the Bull's Eye in: Popular Mechanics , March 1949, pp. 174-175, 254
  6. ^ Riess: Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century , 2015, p. 98
  7. ↑ Chaklai, Rechtschaffen: Science hits the Bull's Eye in: Popular Mechanics , March 1949, pp. 175–176, 252, 254, 256
  8. ↑ Wu: The Master Switch: Rise and Decline of the Information Empires, 2012, pp. 132-134
  9. ^ Hunley: The Development of Propulsion Technology for US Space-Launch Vehicles, 1926-1991 , 2013, pp. 232-233
  10. ↑ US rocket ordnance, 1946, pp. 4, 10
  11. ↑ Reardon: A History of Innovation , 2010, p. 74
  12. ^ Hunley: The Development of Propulsion Technology for US Space-Launch Vehicles, 1926-1991 , 2013, p. 233
  13. ↑ http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm?initial=H


personal data
SURNAME Hickman, Clarence
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hickman, Clarence Nichols (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH near Lizton , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH May 7th 1981