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J A N A. R AJ C H M A N
1911-1989
BY WILLIAM C. HITTINGER
-
TAN A. RAlCH~, retired staffvice-president, R~ Laboratories,
died on April 1, 1989, after a long career as an innovator,
technical leader, and consultant. During his forty years with
RCA, he made significant contributions in the fields of electron
devices ant! computers and was a prolific inventor and publisher.
Born on August 10, 1911, in London, England, he moved at
the age of seven with his parents to their native Poland and three
years later to Geneva, Switzerland. He gracluated from the
College cle Geneve in 1930 end was awarded the M.S. in electrical
engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in
Zurich in 1935 and the D.Sc. in 1938.
Ian Rajchman had a strong desire to do research in America
and arrived as an immigrant in the spring of 1935. He sought
employment at RCA because of its early work in electronics, but
found that there were no openings because of the great depres-
sion. He therefore attended the Massachussetts Institute of
Technology summer session and in August was offered a job by
RCA in an engineering testing laboratory where variable con-
densers for radio receivers were calibrated against standards by
bending the condenser plates by hand. By January 1936 he was
assigned to an electronics laboratory directed by Vladimir
Zworykin, which began an association lasting for many years.
Jan's first work was in electron multipliers. He developecl an
electronically focused device that was much simpler than the
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
existing magnetically focused types. In a study that became the
basis of his doctoral thesis, he found ways to eliminate the main
causes of dark current, thereby extending the sensitivity of
phototubes at low light levels. His designs are still the mainstay
of present-day vacuum multipliers.
In 1939 he became deeply interested in the possibility of
electronic calculations and began a long involvement in com-
puter concepts and structures. He conceived, patented, and
published concepts of many basic logic circuits, including a
resistive matrix that served as the first true read-only memory.
This effort emerged from a government-sponsorecI program
during World War II to develop an electronic computer at the
University of Pennsylvania. Jan joined the project and his mem-
ory device was used in the first electronic computer, the ENIAC.
He continued his computer research after the war and con-
ceived in 1949 the magnetic core memory, for which he is
perhaps best known. He developed the memory system, includ-
ing aspects of the tiny ferrite cores strung on wires, that were
widely used in commercial computers for many years. The
transfluxor, one of his inventions, used a multiaperture core to
perform many analog storage and logic functions in a number of
applications, including subway control systems and assembly
line motor controls.
In 1959 fan Rajchman became director of research et the RCA
Laboratories and lect efforts in many emerging fields, including
magnetic and semiconductor memory and logic devices, elec-
tronic displays, and computer software. He also directed the
technical efforts of RCA's overseas research laboratories in
Zurich and Tokyo from 1971 until his retirement in 1976.
These many exploratory efforts led to the issuance of 11 S U.S.
patents and 50 technical papers. He was much sought after as a
speaker and organizer of technical conferences. He held mem-
bership in some ten professional societies, was elected to NAE
membership in 1966, and was highly honored for his services to
his profession. His awards include the Morris N. Liebmann
Memorial Award and the Edison Mecial of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Harold Pender Award
by the University of Pennsylvania, the NASA Certificate of Rec-
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JAN A. RA]CH MAN
231
ognition, the Franklin Institute Louis E. Levy Mecial, and four
RCA Laboratory Achievement Awards.
Jan Rajchman served as a consultant to government and
industry, particularly after his retirement from RCA. His efforts
included working for the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency in computer studies; as a consultant to AMP, Inc.; and
as Visiting McKay Professor at the University of California,
Berkeley.
His family had a strong tradition of learning. His father was a
doctor; his wife, Ruth, a practicing lawyer; and his two children,
Alice R. Hammond and John A. Rajchman, both doctoral grad-
uates. Jan was a belovecl colleague of many friends and associ-
ates, relationships developed (luring his highly productive tech-
nical career. His calm, witty manner and his vision of the future,
coupled with broad cultural interests, made him unusually
effective as a counselor to manyyoung scientists, a legacy thatwill
endure for years.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
electronic computer
