Harold Edgerton
| Harold Eugene Edgerton | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 6, 1903 Fremont, Nebraska |
| Died | January 4, 1990 (aged 86) Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Fields | Engineering/photography |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Alma mater |
University of Nebraska-Lincoln (B.S., Electrical Engineering, 1925) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.S., Electrical Engineering, 1927; Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, 1931) |
| Known for | Stroboscope |
| Notable awards | SPIE Gold Medal (1981) |
| Spouse | Esther May Garrett |
| Children | Robert Frank Edgerton William Eugene Edgerton Mary Louise Edgerton |
Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton also known as Papa Flash (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990) was a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is largely credited with transforming the stroboscope from an obscure laboratory instrument into a common device. He also was deeply involved with the development of sonar and deep-sea photography, and his equipment was used by Jacques Cousteau in searches for shipwrecks and even the Loch Ness monster.
Edgerton was born in Fremont, Nebraska, on April 6, 1903, the son of Mary Nettie Coe and Frank Eugene Edgerton, a descendant of Richard Edgerton, one of the founders of Norwich, Connecticut and a descendant of Governor William Bradford (1590–1657) of the Plymouth Colony and a passenger on the Mayflower. His father was a lawyer, journalist, author and orator and served as the assistant attorney general of Nebraska from 1911 to 1915. Harold grew up in Aurora, Nebraska. He also spent some of his childhood years in Washington, D.C., and Lincoln, Nebraska.
In 1925 Edgerton received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he became a member of Acacia Fraternity. He earned an S.M. in electrical engineering from MIT in 1927. Edgerton used stroboscopes to study synchronous motors for his Sc.D. thesis in electrical engineering at MIT, awarded in 1931. He credited Charles Stark Draper with inspiring him to photograph everyday objects using electronic flash; the first was a stream of water coming out of a faucet.
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