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OCR for page 63
HAROLD E. EDGERTON
1903-1990
BY GERALD L. WILSON
P ROFESSOR HAROLD E. EDGERTON of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, the inventor of high-speed pho-
tography, the man whose genius transformed the strobe
light from a laboratory curiosity into an important too! for
science, industry, and the military, died at the age of eighty-
six on January 4, 1990.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where
he had been a faculty member since 1932, his official rank
was institute professor, an honor bestowed on only a handful
of faculty. His unofficial title one he bore as proudly as
the loftier one was simply Doc. He was called that by
nearly everyone, from first-year undergraduates to MIT's
incumbent president, who had been one of Doc's students
in the early 1950s.
An internationally eminent electrical engineer, Dr. Edgerton
also was known for developments in sonar technology, which
he applied to geology, archaeology, and undersea explora-
tions.
It was as a photographer of the "unseen" that Dr. Edgerton
was best known to the general public. Millions of people
have seen his stop-action photos, which have frozen the
rapidly fluttering wings of a hummingbird, "stopped" a bullet
as it shattered a light bulb, or revealed the power and grace
that underlie athletic competition.
63
OCR for page 64
64
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
He lived by a credo that is easy to state, but difficult to
follow. A Boston newspaper, published the morning of the
day he was to die, quoted it in reporting yet another honor
for him from a professional organization. "Work like hell,
tell everyone everything you know, close a dread with a
handshake, and have fun."
He was born in Fremont, Nebraska, April 6, 1903, and
grew up in Aurora, Nebraska. While in high school, Professor
Edgerton worked as a janitor, meter reader, coal handler,
and lineman for the local power company, and he planned
to make a career in the power industry. After graduating
from the University of Nebraska with a degree in electrical
engineering in 1925, he joined General Electric Company
in Schenectady, New York.
But after a year there ant] at the urging of his father, a
lawyer and newsman who was well-traveled and had a high
regard for the northeast and its academic institutions, he
went to MIT for graduate work. Professor Ecigerton received
an M.S. in 1927 and became a research assistant in what
then was called the Department of Electrical Engineering.
He earned his Sc.D. in 1931 and was appointed to the fac-
ulty the next year.
It was while working on his doctoral thesis that Professor
Edgerton first turned to stroboscopic photography. Need-
ing to determine the exact position of the armature of the
synchronomous motor he was studying, Professor Edgerton
rigged a mercury vapor lamp so that it wouIct flash at the
same speed as the rotating armature.
He succeeded in
taking excellent pictures of less than ten microseconds duration.
The first flash picture—using a spark had been made
in IS5l, very early in the history of photography, but the
technique had been treated as a curiosity until Edgerton
came along.
Captivated by the success of the armature picture, Dr.
Edgerton and one of his students, Kenneth I. Germeshausen-
both enthusiastic amateur photographers began making
still and motion pictures of all kinds of objects in rapid motion.
OCR for page 65
HAROLD E. EDGERTON
65
Dr. Edgerton also made many advances in high-speed
motion picture techniques. He devised a system by which
action is photographed at a rate of many flashes a second
with an open shutter. The exposures are made by strobe
flashes on a continuously moving film.
During World War IT, Dr. Edgerton was asked to devise a
strobe system for nighttime aerial photography of ground
targets and operations. He developed the necessary appa-
ratus and traveled to Italy and England to supervise its
installation and testing. It was used effectively in the Normandy
invasion in 1944. After the war, Edgerton, Germeshausen,
and Herbert E. Grier, another former student of Edgerton,
were asked to photograph the first peacetime test of an
atomic bomb. From that project the company got involved
in developing the high-speed circuits that triggered such
explosions.
In 1952, when the National Geographic Society asked
Dr. Edgerton to develop an underwater camera for Jacques
Cousteau, the MIT professor began a collaboration with
the famous French explorer that continued for many years.
Cousteau's crew called Edgerton Papa Flash.
Professor Edgerton's pioneering work with side-scan so-
nar included development of equipment that could reveal
not only the existence of objects on the ocean bottom, but
also their shapes. With such apparatus, Dr. Edgerton and
Cousteau explored parts of the Mediterranean. They located
the Britannic. a hospital ship sunk by a mine in the Aegean
Sea during World War T. and various ancient wrecks. With
----, ~ r
the same group, he made a successful archaeological survey
in Lake Titicaca, near the Inca Temple of the Sun. In
1973 Dr. Edgerton helped find the remains of the Civil
War ironclad Monitor, which sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras.
In 1983 MIT dedicated the f~ve-story EG&G Education
Center, designed for teaching and conference purposes.
Dr. Edgerton gave the first lecture in the hall bearing his
name on a subject on which he was an unquestioned au-
thority, the "History of Strobe Photography."
OCR for page 66
66
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Dr. Edgerton was married in 1928 to Esther May Garrett.
They had been childhood friends in Aurora, Nebraska. Their
children are Mrs. Mary L. Dixon of Hickory, North Carolina,
and Robert F. Edgerton of Pontiac, Michigan.
In 1986 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall
of Fame for his invention of ultra high-speed photography.
The patent for the specific invention cited, "Stroboscope,"
was issued August ~ 6, 1949.
Other awards and honors included the Certificate of Ap-
preciation from the War Department and the National Medal
of Science, 1973.
His memberships included the Academy of Applied Science,
Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences, American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, and
Boston Camera Club (honorary). He was elected to the
National Academy of Engineering in 1966.
Dr. Edgerton was a fellow of the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers, Photographic Society of America,
Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, and the Soci-
ety of Motion Picture and TV Engineers.
For all of his Tong career, accessibility to students was a
hallmark of Professor Edgerton. His office door was always
open, and although he might tell a visitor that he had "just
five microseconds," he would spend hours with students,
especially freshmen, sharing the excitement of a new experiment.
Professor and Mrs. Edgerton often entertained students at
their Cambridge apartment where a strobe light was used
to flash a welcome at the door.
Not long after his death, the MIT student newspaper
published a letter from a student who had graduated in
1989. She wanted to relate an incident that had involved
her and Professor Edgerton, "one of the most warm-hearted
people I have ever met." Her letter captured the essence
of MIT's beloved Doc.
The student wrote that she encountered Professor Edgerton
one day in 1988 when she was walking along the campus in
tears over a personal incident. They had not met before.
OCR for page 67
HAROLD E. EDGERTON
67
He invited her to his home, introduced her to his wife, and
they shared their dinner with her.
At this point in her letter there is a memorable passage,
more touching perhaps because the writer is not a native
speaker of English.
"After the dinner, he went under the dining table and
asked me to come under as well. ~ wondered if he liked to
rest under the table after meals, but ~ soon found out why.
There were a lot of writings on the reverse of the table.
Many of them were the signatures of people who had visited,
some with greetings. He gave me a pen and ~ wrote my
name in Japanese.... After that day they invited me over
several times. Some times they would give me take-home
food so ~ could have it for breakfast. Dr. Edgerton told me
that I was his first Japanese granddaughter . . . In our lives
we seldom meet people who really touch our heart . . . I
greatly miss my beloved Grandpa Edgerton, like those who
were also touched by his warmth during his life."
OCR for page 68
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
photographic society
