Harold Eugene Edgerton

Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton (born April 6, 1903 in Fremont , Nebraska , USA; † January 4, 1990 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American electrical engineer , inventor of the electric strobe and pioneer of high-speed photography . He is best known to the public for his spectacular short-term recordings and series of images of the state or the passage of time of projectiles fired , drops of liquid, circus performers and atomic bomb explosions .

biography

He achieved his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1925, his master's degree in 1927, received his doctorate in 1931 and then became a professor and professor at MIT . In 1937 he was awarded the bronze medal of the Royal Photographic Society .

On the important technical application of his inventions v. a. for cameras the electric (later electronic ) flash light and its serial counterpart, the stroboscope . This made it possible for the first time to take short-term images that go beyond the capabilities of the human eye to resolve temporal processes only up to about 1/20 of a second.

Edgerton combined his science with photography; since then he never saw himself as an artist, but always as a scientist. Edgerton was particularly interested in making things and processes visible that are invisible to the human eye because they happen too quickly. In this way, the individual stages of extremely fast movement sequences could be clarified, such as a projectile in flight (including the air flow), the destruction phases of an object hit by it, movement sequences in sports or the dynamics of the flapping of birds' wings.

In 1936 Edgerton met the hummingbird expert May Rogers Webster . In close cooperation, it became possible to obtain detailed photographs of these birds, which in flight flutter their wings 60 times per second, by taking pictures with an exposure time of 1 / 100,000 second. As a result, a picture was published in National Geographic magazine showing Webster with three flying hummingbirds in sharp focus; this made him known to a wider audience. Many more speculative publications should follow over the years.

During World War II, the US Army soon discovered the practical use of its work to make things visible that previously seemed impossible. Edgerton was commissioned to develop a long-range flash suitable for aerial photography. His system made it possible to carry out reconnaissance flights at night, the analysis of which contributed significantly to the outcome of the war. After the war, Edgerton founded EG&G Inc. together with Kenneth Germeshausen and Herbert Grier . They developed a high-speed camera , the Rapatronic , with which it was possible to photograph the individual phases of an atomic bomb explosion from just 7 miles away. Edgerton later became involved in sonar and underwater photography . With his inventions he made it possible for researchers like Jacques Cousteau to take photographs of the normally lightless depths of the seas with the help of underwater flash units.

In 1940, George Sidney made a ten-minute documentary about Edgerton's invention ( Quicker'n a Wink ), which won an Oscar for best short film .

In 1941 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society . In 1956 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1964 to the National Academy of Sciences , and in 1966 a member of the National Academy of Engineering . Since 1972 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .

Shortly before his death, Edgerton coined the saying in which he summarized his philosophy of life: "Work like hell, tell everyone everything you know, close a deal with a handshake, and have fun."

Edgerton was still active at his university after his retirement and died suddenly at the age of 86 while attending the MIT Faculty Club. He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts .

In 2001 the asteroid (11726) Edgerton was named after him.

Works

• Flash! Seeing the Unseen by Ultra High-Speed ​​Photography (1939, with James Rhyne Killian). Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint.
• Electronic Flash, Strobe (1970). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Moments of Vision (1979, with Mr. Killian). Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-05022-6 .
• Sonar Images (1986, with Mr. Killian). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-822651-2 .
• Stopping time: Harold Edgerton's photography. Schaffhausen et al. 1988: Edition Stemmle. ISBN 978-3-7231-0379-1 .
• Seeing the Unseen. MIT Museum (ed.). Göttingen: Steidl Verlag , 2019. ISBN 978-3-95829-308-3 .

Photographs (selection)

• Football Kick (1938): leather sports shoe meets football, black and white
• Diver (1955): Flight phases of a high diver (triple exposure with stroboscope)
• Milk Drop Coronet (1957): milk drop floating above a crown on the surface
• Cranberry Juice into Milk (1960): cranberry juice drops rising from milk, colored
• Moscow Circus (1963): A circus artist's backflip on stilts, 8-fold stroboscopic exposure
• Bullet Through Banana (1964): Pistol bullet pierces a banana
• .30 Bullet Piercing an Apple (1964): rifle bullet flies through and shatters an apple, colored
• Cutting the Card Quickly (1964): Ball leaves a joker of diamonds that has just been cut, colored
• Pigeon Release (1965): pigeon soaring by one hand (triple exposure with stroboscope)
• Bullet Through Candle Flame (1973) (with Kim Vandiver): Bullet through candle flame

Web links

• Literature by and about Harold Eugene Edgerton in the catalog of the German National Library
• Gerald L. Wilson: Harold E. Edgerton 1903-1990. Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, Volume 4 (1991). National Academy of Engineering, pp. 63-67 , accessed December 9, 2015 . 
• Edgerton's photograph of a milk drop
• Gunshots and Explosions (Harold Edgerton)
• Author page on the Steidl Verlag website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ NAE Members: Dr. Harold E. Edgerton. National Academy of Engineering, accessed December 9, 2015 . 
2. ^ Member History: Harold E. Edgerton. American Philosophical Society, accessed July 26, 2018 . 
3. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 43045
4. ↑ "Harold Edgerton (United States, 1907–1990): Bullet through Banana, 1964, printed 1985" ( Memento of the original from October 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Los Angeles County Museum of Art