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ALFRED LEE LOOMIS
November 4, 1887-August ~ I, 1975
BY LUIS W. ALVAREZ
THE BEGINNING of this century marked a profound
change in the manner in which science was pursued.
Before that time, most scientists were independently wealthy
gentlemen who could afford to clevote their lives to the search
for scientific truth. The following paradigms come to mind:
Lord Cavendish, Charles Darwin, Count Rumford, ant! Lord
Rayleigh. But after the turn of the century, university scien-
tists found it possible to earn a living teaching students, while
cloing research "on the sicle." So the true amateur has almost
clisappeared Alfred Loomis may well be remembered as the
last of the great amateurs of science. He hac! clistinguished
careers as a lawyer, as an Army officer, and as an investment
banker before he turned his full energies to the pursuit of
scientific knowledge, first in the field of physics, and later as
a biologist. By any measure that can be employed, he was one
of the most influential physical scientists of this century. In
support of that assessment, one can note: (~) his election to
this Academy when he was 53 years oicI, (2) his honorary
degrees from prestigious universities, (3) his crucial wartime
role as director of all NDR~OSRD radar research in World
War IT, and (4) his exceeclingly close personal relationships
with many of the leaders of American science and govern-
ment in the mid-twentieth century.
309
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310
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
With that brief introduction to the remarkable career of
Alfred L. Loomis, we will now examine the man himself, to
find, as one might expect, that he was indeed as extraorcli-
nary as his unique accomplishments would suggest.
He was born in New York City on November 4, 1887. His
father was Dr. Henry Patterson Loomis, a well-known physi-
cian ant! professor of clinical medicine at New York and
Cornell medical colleges. His grandfather, for whom he was
named, was the great nineteenth century tuberculosis
specialist whose work was commemorated in the naming of
the Loomis Laboratory at Cornell Meclical College, and the
Loomis Sanatorium at Liberty, New York. His maternal uncle
was also a physician, as well as the father of Alfred Loomis'
favorite cousin, Henry L. Stimson, who was Secretary of State
uncler Herbert Hoover, and Secretary of War throughout
WorIct War II.
From Alfred Loomis' eclucational background, one would
correctly judge that he came from a prosperous, but not
exceedingly wealthy family. He attended St. Matthew's Mili-
tary Academy in Tarrytown, New York from the age of nine
until he entered Andover at thirteen. His early interests were
chess and magic; in both fields, he attained near professional
status. He was a chilcl prodigy in chess, and could play two
simultaneous blincIfoIc! games. He was an expert card and
coin manipulator, and he also possessed a collection of magic
apparatus of the kind used by stage magicians. On one of the
family summer trips to Europe, young Alfred spent most of
his money on a large box filled to the brim with foIclec! paper
flowers, each of which wouIcl spring into shape when released
from a confined hiding place. His unhappiest moment came
when a customs inspector, noting the protective manner
in which the box was being helct, insisted that it be
openecI~ver the strong protests of its owner. It took a whole
afternoon to retrieve all the flowers.
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ALFRED LEE LOOMIS
311
The story of the paper flowers is included in this bio-
graphical memoir because it is the only story of Alfred's
childhoocI ~ can remember hearing from him. (Since all his
friends called him Alfred, and since the story of his life is for
his friends in the Academy, ~ will refer to him most often as
Alfred. Those who knew him less well caller! him Dr.
Loomis.) In the thirty-five years during which ~ knew him
rather intimately, ~ never heard him mention the game of
chess, and his homes contained not a single visible chessboard
or set. (When ~ checked this point recently with Mrs. Loomis,
she wrote, "Alfred kept a small chess set in a drawer by his
chair and wouIc! use it, on and off, to relax from other
intellectual pursuits. He preferred solving chess problems or
inventing new ones to playing games with other people.")
He lover! all intellectual challenges and most particularly,
mathematical puzzles. He macle a serious attempt to learn the
Japanese game of Go, so that he could share more fully in the
life of his son Farney, who was one of the best Go players in
the United States. But his chess background wasn't transfer-
able to the quite different intricacies of Go, and he had to be
content to collaborate with his son in their researches on the
physiology of hydra. As he grew biller, his manual dexterity
lessened, but he still enjoyed showing his sleight of hand
tricks to the children of his friends and to his granct-
children but never to aclults.
It was characteristic of Alfred that he lived in the present,
and not in the past the way so many members of his genera-
tion do. On the very few occasions when he sharer! one of the
many closed chapters of his life with me, I was enchanted by
what he had to say about the captains of industry and the
defenders of the America's Cup, who were many years ago
his most intimate friends. He apparently felt it would sound
as though he were bragging if he alluded to the great power
he once wielded in the financial world when in the company
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312
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
of a university professor. In 1940, ~ casually asked him what
he thought of Wendell Wilikie, the Republican presidential
candidate, and he said, "I guess I'll have to say ~ approve of
him because ~ appointed him head of Commonwealth and
Southern." Alfred was the major stockholder of that utility,
so there was certainly an element of truth in his flip and very
uncharacteristic remark. He was immediately and obviously
embarrassed by what he had said, anct it would be another
twenty years before he made another reference to his finan-
· -
cla career 1n my presence.
Alfred entered Yale in 1905, where he excellent in mathe-
matics, but he was not interested enough in the formalities of
science to enter Sheffield] Scientific School. He took the stan-
dard gentIemen's courses in liberal arts, anct without giving
much thought to his career, felt he would probably engage in
some kind of scientific work after he gracluatecI. But one
afternoon, a close friend came to him for advice on choosing
a career. Alfred strongly urged him to go to law school,
pointing out that a broad knowleclge of the law was a woncler-
ful springboard! to a variety of careers; in adclition to formal
legal work, a lawyer was well prepared for careers in business,
politics, or government administration. Alfred was so im-
pressec} by the arguments he marshaled for his friend that he
enrolled in Harvarc! Law School. He never regretted that
decision, because it gave him a breadth of vision that he
applied to many fields.
In his senior year at Yale, he was secretary of his class, but
he had the time and the financial resources to pursue his
life-Ion" hobby of "gadgeteering." His extracurricular activi-
ties involved technical matters such as the building of gliders,
mode] airplanes, and radio-controlled automobiles. He was
fascinated by artillery weapons, and we shall learn that the
great store of information he accumulated in that field
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ALFRED LEE LOOMIS 313
played a crucial role in changing the major focus in his life
from business to the world of science. A glicler he built and
tester! from the clones near his summer home at East
Hampton stayed in the air several minutes. It was obvious to
his friends that he was clistinguishec! by a wicle-ranging mind
ant! the ability to "learn all about" a completely new fielcI in
a remarkably short time through inclepenclent reading. That
facet of his personality ant] intellect was the most immutable
throughout his life a life that would be characterizes! by
periodic and major changes of interest.
Alfred's clecision to become a lawyer was certainly in-
fluenced by his cousin, Henry Stimson, in whose firm of
Winthrop and Stimson he was assured a law clerkship. But
after his ctistinguished performance at Harvard Law School,
where he was in the "top ten," helped edit the Harvarc! Law
Review, ant! gracluatec] cum laude in 1912, he would have
been welcomed in any New York law firm. As one would
guess from his later interests, he specialized in corporate law
and its financial aspects.
By 19 ~ 5, he was a member of the firm, and married to the
former Ellen Farnsworth of Dec~ham, Massachusetts. They
lived in Tuxedo Park and raised three fine sons, each of
whom sharer! one or more of his father's major interests.
Alfrec3's ideas on chill! rearing were unorthodox, but very
successful. He thought that his sons shouIc! learn at an early
age to manage all their own affairs, so he gave each of them
a large sum of money at age fourteen, with no controls what-
soever. Each one planned his own education, and decided
what hobbies to pursue, after much consultation with, but no
veto power from, Alfred. 'rhe oldest son, Lee (Alfred Lee
Loomis, Jr.), is a successful financier and famous deep sea
sailor. 'rhe seconc! son, the late Farney (William Farnsworth
Loomis), was a physician and later Professor of Biochemistry
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314
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
at Brancleis University. He was a Himalayan climber, pilot,
and as an oss doctor, parachuted into China beyond Japa-
nese lines in World War Il. The third son is Henry, a racier
officer in WorIct War TI who gave up a career in physics for
one in public service administration. He was assistant to the
President of MIT, later Director of the Voice of America, and
is now President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Alfred's career as a young corporation lawyer was inter-
ruptect by World War I. When he joined the Army, his fellow
officers were surpriser! to learn that he knew much more
about modern field artillery than anyone they had ever met.
He hacl made good use of the special communication chan-
nels available to Wall Street lawyers, and had accumulated a
vast store of up-to-the-minute data on the latest orcinance
equipment available to the warring European powers. His
expertise in such matters led to his assignment to the Aber-
cleen Proving Grounds, and before long, he was put in charge
of experimental research on exterior ballistics, with the rank
of major. At Aberdeen, he was thrown into ciaily contact with
some of the best physicists and astronomers of this country,
and he and they benefited from each other's talents.
in those days, before photoelectric cells ant! radar sets
came to the aid of exterior balIasticians, there was no con-
venient way to measure the velocity of shells fires! from large
guns. Alfred invented the Aberdeen Chronograph, which
satisfied that need for many years after its invention. It is
hard for someone like me, who came into a scene long after
an ingenious device had been invented, and later supplanted,
to appreciate what macle that crevice so special. But the fact
that Alfred singled out the Aberdeen Chronograph for men-
tion in his entries in Who's Who and American Men and Women
of Science, and mentioned it on a number of occasions in
conversations with me, makes me believe that it must have
been a remarkably successful and important invention.
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ALFRED LEE LOOMIS
1
315
Alfrect set such high standards for his own performance that
no other interpretation of the value of the Aberdeen Chrono-
graph wouIc! be consistent with his pride in it.
One of the friends Alfrec! made at Aberdeen was
R. W. Wood, who was consiclerec! by many to be the most
brilliant American experimental physicist then alive. They
had known each other casually from the circumstance that
each of their families had summer homes at East Hampton,
on Long Island. But at Aberdeen, they initiated a symbiotic
relationship that lasted many years. Wood became, in effect,
Alfred's private tutor, and Alfred responded by becoming
Woo(l's scientific patron. The following paragraphs from
Wood's biography, including some clirect quotations from
R. W. Wood, tell of this relationship better than anyone of the
Present era could.
It was a consequence of Wood's scientific zest and social strenuousness
that fate brought him, about this time, the facilities of a great private
laboratory backed by a great private fortune. He had met Alfred Loomis
during the war at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and later they became
neighbors on Long Island. Loomis was a multimillionaire New York
banker whose lifelong hobby had been physics and chemistry. Loomis was
an amateur in the original French sense of the word, for which there is no
English equivalent. During the war, he had invented the "Loomis Chrono-
graph" for measuring the velocity of shells. Their friendship, resulting in
the equipment of a princely private laboratory at Tuxedo Park, was a grand
thing for them both.
A happy collaboration began, which came to its full flower in 1924.
Here is Wood's story of what happened.
"Loomis was visiting his aunts at East Hampton and called on me one
afternoon, while I was at work with something or other in my barn labora-
tory. We had a long talk and swapped stories of what we had seen or heard
of 'science in warfare.' Then we got onto the subject of postwar research,
and after that he was in the habit of dropping in for a talk almost every
afternoon, evidently finding the atmosphere of the old barn more inter-
esting if less refreshing than that of the beach and the country club.
"One day he suggested that if I contemplated any research we might do
together which required more money than the budget of the Physics
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316
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
Department could supply, he would like to underwrite it. I told him about
Langevin's experiments with supersonics* during the war and the killing
of fish at the Toulon Arsenal. It offered a wide field for research in physics,
chemistry, and biology, as Langevin had studied only the high-frequency
waves as a means of submarine detection. Loomis was enthusiastic, and we
made a trip to the research laboratory of General Electric to discuss it with
Whitney and Hull.
"The resulting apparatus was built at Schenectady and installed at first
in a large room in Loomis' garage at Tuxedo Park, New York, where we
worked together, killing fish and mice, and trying to find out whether the
waves destroyed tissue or acted on the nerves or what.
'`As the scope of the work expanded we were pressed for room in the
garage and Mr. Loomis purchased the Spencer Trask house, a huge stone
mansion with a tower, like an English country house, perched on the
summit of one of the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains in Tuxedo Park.
This he transformed into a private laboratory deluxe, with rooms for
guests or collaborators, a complete machine shop with mechanic and a
dozen or more research rooms large and small. I moved my forty-foot
spectrograph from East Hampton and installed it in the basement of the
laboratory so that I could continue my spectroscopic work in a better
environment . . ."
Loomis, who was anxious to meet some of the celebrated European
physicists and visit their laboratories, asked Wood to go abroad with him.
They made two trips together, one in the summer of 1926, the other
in 1928....t
After WorI(1 War 1:, Alfrecl formed a lifelong business
partnership with Landon K. Thorne, his sister pulsars hus-
bancI. In the thirty-five years ~ was so personally close to
Alfred, ~ met Lanclon Thorne on only two occasions. Alfrec!
kept his business friends and his scientific friends quite sepa-
rate. For a long time, he apparently reasoned that while his
broad range of interests ma(le both groups exceedingly inter-
esting to him, the two disparate groups might not fee! about
* At the present time, the word "supersonic" is reserved for the characterization
of objects that move faster than the velocity of sound. The subject pioneered by
Langevin, Loomis and Wood sound waves with frequencies above the audible
range is now called "ultrasonics."
"William B. Seabrook, Dr. Wood, Modern Wizard of the Laboratory (New York:
Harcourt. Brace and Company, 1941), pp. 213-17.
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ALFRED LEE LOOMIS
317
each other as he clid about them. So Alfred tract many busi-
ness friends about whom ~ have heard in the greatest detail,
but never met. As he grew oIcler, Alfrecl's personal ties to the
scientific world became the dominant ones, and ~ find that his
last entry in Who's Who in America lists his occupation simply
as "Physicist."
Alfred was proud of the fact that he and Lanclon Thorne
were in many kinds of business deals, and in every one of
them, they were equal partners. First of all, they had equal
shares in the very profitable Bonbright and Co., the invest-
ment banking firm of which Landon was the president, and
Alfred the vice-presiclent. This firm was instrumental in put-
ting together and financing many of the largest public
· · . .
up sties In the country.
The two partners also built a very innovative racing sloop
of the }-class, which they hoped would win the right to race
against Sir Thomas Lipton in one of his periodic attempts to
capture the America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club.
To cut clown on wind resistance, the partners arranged to
have most of the crew below decks at all times, working levers
in the fashion of galley slaves, rather than hauling on wet
lines on the deck. With the help of the MIT Naval Archi-
tecture Department, they did a thorough study of hull
shapes, and there were several changes in the location
of the mast ma(le of strongest and lightest aluminum
alloy~uring the test program. But in spite of all these
efforts, Whirlwind wasn't a success. Perhaps the best indicator
of Alfred Loomis' financial state at that time is that }-boats
were then almost always built by "synclicates" of wealthy men
such as the Vanderbilts. But in order to have complete con-
tro! of their J-boat, Alfred and Lanclon paid for the whole
project, 5~50 as always. After World War Il. ]-boats became
too expensive even for syndicates of rich men, so the Amer-
ica's Cup races are now sailed in the smaller " ~ 2-meter" boats.
Another of Alfrecl and Lan(lon's partnerships was the
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
ownership of Hilton Head, an island off the coast of South
Carolina. Hilton Head is now a famous resort area, with
luxurious hotels and golf courses. But when Alfred and
Landon owned it, it was completely rustic. They used it only
for ricing and hunting, and invited their friends to share the
beauties of the place with them. They also owned a large
oceangoing steam yacht, which they donated to the Navy at
the start of World War Il. ~ can count on the fingers of one
hand the number of times I've seen Alfrect's name in the
public press he believed that the ideal life was one of"pros-
perous anonymity." The first time I saw Alfred's name in
print was when Time identified him as a "dolIar-a-yacht man,'
one of several who had given their yachts to the Navy in
return for a dollar. Recently, I've found in the library two oic!
articles about Alfred. The first was a popular article on the
unusual }-boat and its owners. The second was an article in
the very first issue of Fortune concerning Wall Street firms,
and telling of the great success of Bonbright and Co., its
well-known president, L.andon Thorne, and its shadowy and
brilliant vice-president, Alfrecl Loomis, who kept in the back-
ground and planned their financial coupe. According to the
article, "Bonbright . . . rose in the twenties from near bank-
ruptcy to a status as the leacling U.S. investment-banking
house specializing in public-utility securities."
Another joint endeavor was the rrhorne-Loomis Founda-
tion which sent ten boys at a time (2,000 in all) on six-week
tours of industrial plants in special trucks, designed by
Alfred.
When the Fortune article appeared, Altred was leading a
double life; his days were spent on Wall Street, but his even-
ings and weekends were devoted to his hilltop laboratory in
the huge stone castle in '[uxedo Park. The laboratory was
abandoned in November 1940, so those who worked in it
could join the newly established MIT Radiation Laboratory
. . ~ .
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ALFRED LEE LOOMIS
331
can be traced to the Shortt clocks, which tract a master penclu-
lum swinging in a vacuum chamber, and a heavy-duty pen-
clulum "slavecI" to it, oscillating in the air.
To obtain a navigational "fix" with loran requires the
measurement of the time difference in arrival of pulses from
two pairs of transmitting stations. Each such time difference
places the observer on a particular hyperbola. The observer's
position is fixed by the intersection of two such hyperbolas,
each derived from signals originating from a pair of long
wave transmitting stations. It is common for a Loran fix to
derive from only three transmitters, with the middle one
serving as a member of two different transmitter pairs. All of
the wartime Loran stations operated at the same radio fre-
quency, and different pairs of transmissions were clistin-
guishec! by characteristic repetition rates for their pulses. The
techniques for separating the signals and for measuring their
differences in arrival time were "state of the art" at that time,
but the problem of synchronizing the transmissions to within
a microsecond, at points hundreds of miles apart, was a new
one in radio engineering. Alfrecl proposed the following
solution: the central station was to be the master station, and
its transmissions were timed from a quartz crystal. The other
stations also used quartz crystals, but in addition, monitored
the arrival times of the pulses from the master station. When
the operators notec! that the arrival time of the master pulses
was drifting from its correct value, relative to the transmitting
time at that particular "slave station," the phase of the slave's
quartz crystal oscillator was changed to bring the two stations
back into proper synchronization. This procedure was able to
bridge over periods when the signals at one station "facled
out," anct it was also what made Loran a practical system
during World War IT, rather than an interesting idea that
wouIcl have to await the invention of cesium beam clocks,
which were introcluced in the 1950's.
The second project of interest in this biographical sketch
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
is Ground Controlled Appraoch (GCA), the "radar talk-down
system for landing planes in bad weather." The basic idea
behind GCA came to me one day in the summer of 1941 as ~
watched the first microwave fire control radar track an air-
plane, automatically, from the roof of MIT. It occurred to me
that if a radar set could track a plane accurately enough in
range, azimuth ant! elevation to shoot it down, it could use
that same information to give landing instructions to a
friendly plane caught up in bad weather.
Starting from that simple concept, my associates and I,
with strong backing from AlfrecI, shower! that the technique
would work if the racier set gave angular information that was
as reliable as the optical information we user! in our tests. We
hac! to wait several months for the radar set to become avail-
able for landing tests, but in one early demonstration, the
radar click track several planes successfully as they executed
their approach and landing. But in the schecluled radar tests,
the equipment was found to be quite unable to track planes
near the ground; it would sullenly break away from the line
of sight to the plane, and point instead down at the image of
the plane, reflected in the surface of the ground.
At the conclusion of this disastrous set of tests, Alfred
invites! me to have dinner with him in his suite at the Ritz-
Cariton in Boston ant] he did an amazing job in restoring my
morale, which was at its lowest ever. He said, "We both know
that GCA iS the only way planes will be blincl-landed in this
war, so we have to find some way to make it work. T don't
want you to go home tonight until we're satisfied that you've
come up with a design that will do the job." We both con-
tributed ideas to the system that eventually worked, and that
involved a complete departure from all previous antenna
configurations. I'm sure that had it not been for Alfred's
actions that night, there would have been no effective blind
landing system in World War IT, and many lives would have
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ALFRED LEE LOOM I S
333
been lost unnecessarily. ~ would have immersed myself in the
other interesting projects that concerned me, and would soon
have forgotten my disappointment and my embarrassment.
Alfred played another interesting role in GCA by ordering
ten preproduction models of the embryonic crevice we had
invented at the Ritz-CarIton from a small raclio company on
the West Coast. He dicl this for two reasons: in the first place,
the laboratory hac! failed bacIly in transferring its first air-
borne racier set to industry for production. The inclustrial
engineers predictably cleveloped a bacl case of NIH (Not
Invented Here), and promptly decided that everything had
to be re-engineered. The final product came out so late and
was so heavy that it never saw any action. Because of that
experience, Alfred and Rowan Gaither (later the first presi-
dent of the Forc! Foundation) set up the "Transition Office,"
whose job was to avoid the problems mentioned above.
Rowan became heact of the Transition Office, and GCA was
selectee! as the first test case of the new technique. Its basic
idea was that a company would be selected to produce a new
radar set before the original ideas had been worked out in
any (retail. The chief engineer of the designatecl company,
plus a few of his assistants, would come to the laboratory and
participate in the design and testing of the new device, as
members of an MIT-company team. In this way, when they
returned to their factory to produce the device, everything in
it would be "our icicas" and "our design." The Transition
Office was a spectacular success, and in the process, Rowan
Gaither became extraordinarily close, personally, both to
Alfred anct me.
The seconc! reason that Alfrecl orderecl the ten prepro-
duction sets, using NDRC-OSRD funds, was that the Army and
Navy as well as the RAF had all said, inclependently, that their
pilots would "never obey lancling instructions from someone
sitting in comfort on the ground," and that they wouIcl con-
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334
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
tinue pressing for something like the ILS (Instrument Land-
ing System) that is now in general use throughout the world.
Alfred was confident that as soon as the three services saw
GCA work, they wouIct immediately accept it, and want work-
ing moclels to test, "yesterclay."
After some very successful tests at Washington National
Airport, in which high service officials watchect pilots land
"under the hoocI," when those pilots had never even heard of
the system until after they were in the air, there was a rush to
order several huncTrecl GCA sets. When the three services
learned that NDRC had ten sets almost built, they called a
meeting at the Pentagon to allocate them for tests in this
country and in England. Alfred was invited, and he asked me
to sit in. Neither of us said a worct as the admirals, generals,
and air marshalIs engages! in a horse-trading session that
ended up with all ten sets allocates! to the services, ant! none
to MIT or to the NDRC. The meeting was about to break up
when Alfred said quietly, "Gentlemen, there seems to be
some misapprehension concerning the ownership of these
radar sets; it is my understanding that they belong to NDRC,
and ~ am here to represent that organization." Ilis training as
a lawyer was immediately apparent, and after he had shown
in his gentle manner that he held all the cards, an allocation
that was satisfactory to all concerned was quickly worker! out.
And NDRC even ended up with one of its own GCA sets!
At the ens! of the war, Ernest Lawrence was asked for his
evaluation of Alfrecl's contribution to radar, and he had this
to say:
He had the vision and courage to lead his committee as no other man
could have led it. He used his wealth very effectively in the way of enter-
taining the right people and making things easy to accomplish. His prestige
and persuasiveness helped break the patent jams that held up radar devel-
opment. He exercised his tact and diplomacy to overcome all obstacles.
He's that kind of man. I've never seen him lose his temper or heard him
raise his voice. He steers a mathematically straight course and succeeds in
OCR for page 335
ALFRED LEE LOOMIS
335
having his own way by force, logic and by being right. I am perfectly sure
that if Alfred Loomis had not existed, radar development would have been
retarded greatly, at an enormous cost in American lives.*
Alfred's other important role during the war is so little
known that its only mention in print is in a brief obituary
notice ~ wrote for Physics Today. Many authors have com-
mentec! on the remarkable lack of administrative roadblocks
experiences! by the Army's Manhattan District, the builders
of the atomic bombs. In my opinion, this smooth sailing was
due in large part to the mutual trust and respect that Secre-
tary of War Stimson and Alfred had. Alfred was in effect
Stimson's minister without portfolio to the scientific leader-
ship of the Manhattan District- his old friends Ernest
Lawrence, Arthur Compton, Enrico Fermi, and Robert
Oppenheimer. Alfred maintained a hose! room in Washing-
ton throughout the war, which his friends used when they
couIcin't find other accommodations, and one of the reasons
for this was so that he could be available to talk with the
Secretary on short notice. Alfrec! was also a member of a
small committee set up by the Secretary to advise him con-
cerning the V-l and V-2 weapons being developed by the
Germans, and just coming to the attention of military intel-
ligence. At the committee's suggestion, the V-l menace was
largely blunted by a combination of the SCR-584 developed in
Alfred's laboratory, an advanced computer developecl by the
Bellrrelephone Laboratory, the proximity fuses developed
by Merle rove and his associates working under NDRC spon-
sorship, and the Army's anti-aircraft guns. The V-2 rockets
could not be defended against, and the committee recom-
mended the only course of action possible, ant! the one that
was followed—capture of the firing sites.
Toward the end of the war, Alfred was able to relax for
the first time in five years, and he concurrently made an
*"Amateur of the Sciences," Fortune, 33(March 1946):132-35.
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336
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
important change in his personal life. He and Ellen were
clivorced, and he married Manette Seelcirayers Hobart. They
had an extraordinarily happy time together during the final
thirty-two years of Alfred's life. His lifestyle underwent a
dramatic change from one of multiple homes staffed by
many servants to a very simple one, in which he and Manette
cooked dinner every evening in East Hampton, side by side
in the kitchen. Alfrec! designed a special rolling cart that
brought the food to one end of the table, where he and
Manette sat opposite each other, and served themselves from
the cart. If there were guests, the plates were passer! clown
each side of the table to them, from the cart. This new style
of servantIess elegance was written up in a magazine devoted
to "good living."
Alfre(l's principal scientific interests changed at this time
from the physical to the biological. As an example, I've men-
tionect his contributions to research on hydra. In that period,
one of the bathrooms in his Park Avenue apartment was
filled with petri dishes containing hydra. Alfrec] spent hours
each day examining the hydra uncler a microscope, and com-
paring his observations with those of his son, Farney. He and
Farney organized small meetings to which they invited spe-
cialists in subjects about which they wished to learn more. As
in the old Loomis Laboratory days, the invitations incluclecl
first class round trip transportation, plus luxurious living at
the resort hotels where the meetings were held.
Alfred enjoyed introducing his scientific friends to the
pleasures that are normally known only to the very wealthy.
For many years, he and Manette visited California each
spring, and invitec! several couples from Ernest Lawrence's
laboratory to be their guests at the De! Monte Lodge at Pebble
Beach, and to play golf at the Cypress Point Golf Club. In
later years, the Loomises spent their winters in Jamaica,
where their friends were invited, a week at a time, to share
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ALFRED LEE LOOMIS
337
with their hosts the sun, the beach, and good food ant! goof]
conversation. As often happens with men as they grow older,
Alfrecl's circle of closest friends shrank to those he called "my
other sons." ~ was fortunate to be incluclecI, along with John
S. Foster, fir., Walter 0. Roberts, Ronald Christie, and Julius
A. Stratton. Had Ernest Lawrence and Rowan Gaither out-
lived Alfred, they would have continues! to visit the Loomises
each winter in Jamaica, as members of the "other sons."
T can think of no better way to end this biographical
memoir than by quoting the last paragraph of my Physics
Today obituary:
J 1 0 1 C7 1
For those of us who were fortunate to know him well, he will be remem-
bered as a warm and wise friend, always interested in learning new things.
I was his guest for three days in May of this year, and what he most wanted
to learn from me concerned programming tricks for the Hewlett-Packard
model 65 hand-held computer that was his constant companion. I think it
most fitting that my last visual memories of this renaissance man, whose life
encompassed and contributed much to the electronic age, should have him
operating a hand-held electronic computer containing tens of thousands of
transistors.*
*Luis W. Alvarez, "Alfred L. Loomis" (obituary), Physics Today, 28(11):8~87.
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338
HONORARY DEGREES
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
HONORS AND DISTINCTIONS
D.Sc., Wesleyan University, 1932
M.Sc., Yale University, 1933
LL.D., University of California, 1941
AWARDS AND MEDALS
Wetherhill Medal of Franklin Institute, 1934
Medal for Merit, 1948
His Majesty's Medal for Service in the Cause of Freedom, 1948
BOARDS OF TRUSTEES
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Life Member)
Carnegie Institution of Washington
Rand Corporation
Research Corporation
New York Hospital
SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES
National Academy of Sciences
American Philosophical Society
American Physical Society
American Chemical Society
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Astronomical Society
Audio Engineering Society
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
Royal Astronomical Society
ADMINISTRATIVE POSTS
Chief, National Defense Research Committee, Division 14 (Radar)
Director, Loomis Laboratories
President, Loomis Institute for Scientific Research
Vice President, Bonbright and Company
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ALFRED LEE LOOMIS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
339
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Chronographs. U.S. Patent No. 1,376,890, issued May 3.
1927
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1928
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1929
With Robert Williams Wood. Methods and apparatus for forming
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1930
With E. Newton Harvey and C. MacRae. The intrinsic rhythm of
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1932
With W. A. Marrison. Modern developments in precision clocks.
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1933
With E. Newton Harvey. Microscope-centrifuge. U.S. Patent No.
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1935
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1936
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341
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1937
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1939
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1959
Long Range Navigation System. U.S. Patent No. 2,884,628, issued
April 28.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
lee loomis
