Figure 1.1 Location of Buffalo

[NOTE: This is Part 1 of a fourteen part series of articles first developed as a PowerPoint presentation by Craig A. Woodworth, IEEE Life Member (a.k.a Cawoody), for a joint meeting of the Buffalo Section IEEE and the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society on April 14, 2004.]

About Vladimir Zworykin

Electric Elevators

In 1880, Werner von Siemens demonstrated the first electric powered elevator at the Mannheim Pfalzgau exhibition. While electric traction was new, the elevator was not. The use of hoists to lift material in mines, construction sites, and warehouses, had been around for centuries.

== Manual and Steam Elevators ==

Welcome to the Clarence E. Larson Collection, a collection of video oral histories with noted Physicists.

Clarence E. Larson

Clarence E. Larson (1909-1999) was an important pioneer in the field of atomic energy. After serving on the Manhattan Project during World War II, Larson became director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he served from 1950 to 1955. He was an executive at Union Carbide. from 1955-1969 where he headed up the Nuclear Energy Division. From 1969-1974 Dr. Larson was Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He was the recipient of many awards and honors.

About Charles H. Townes

Charles H. Townes, a 1964 Nobel prize recipient in physics, was a pioneer in the field of laser theory.  He received the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1967 "For his significant contributions in the field of quantum electronics which have led to the maser and the laser."

Moog Synthesizer

Image:moogsyn.jpg

The idea came in 1963, after Moog was invited to an “experimental” music concert. Inspired, he would subsequently build the first prototypes of what became his signature “modular” synthesizer circuits—electronic oscillators, filters, and amplifiers that operated independently and could be connected together in various configurations to produce sounds. The oscillators produced the basic tones in the form of sine waves, square-waves, or triangular “sawtooth” waves. A keyboard controlled the pitch by sending the oscillator a signal voltage that varied depending on which key was pressed. Then the tones were shaped or through another bank of “filter” circuits to customize the sound or “timbre” of the tone. Finally, the tones were sent to one or more amplifiers to boost them for listening. Demonstrating his prototypes to various musicians and composers, Moog was convinced that he had something really exciting.

Biography

Lewis Latimer

Lewis Howard Latimer was born to George and Rebecca Latimer on 4 September 1848, the youngest of four children (three boys and one girl). He attended only grade school, and the remainder of his education was self-taught. At the age of 10 he began working with his father in order to support the family. He has a fabulous appetite for reading, drawing, and learning in general.

The son of a former slave, Latimer had bitter feelings about slavery. At the age of 15, he falsified the date on his birth certificate and enlisted in the Union Navy during the Civil War. After receiving an honorable discharge, Latimer returned to Boston. His first job was as an office boy with Crosly and Gage, a well-known Boston patent law firm. He taught himself drafting and, after recognizing his talents, the firm promoted him to draftsman. One of his assignments was to make the initial drawings for one of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone patents.

Papers of Charles Proteus Steinmetz: Archival Documents

American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Application for the Transfer to the Grade of Fellow filled and signed by Charles Steinmetz, New York, NY, June 26th, 1912.

Application to transfer to grade of Fellow, 1912, Biography, Steinmetz, Charles Proteus, Box HB-113.

About Takao Nishitani

A 1998 IEEE fellow "for contributions to the development of LSI chip architectures on digital signal processors," Takao Nishitani produced pioneering DSP (digital signal processing) and ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) technology as an employee at NEC during the 1970s and 1980s. The DSP chip he developed revolutionized microprocessing and the computer industry in the 1980s and 1990s.  As professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, IEEE volunteer, and leader in the Signal Processing Society Tokyo Chapter, Professor Dr. Takao Nishitani has bridged the academy and industry to promote industrial signal processing research.

About Simon Ramo

Simon Ramo grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah in the 1910s and 1920s. His parents had both emigrated from Eastern Europe, and his father owned a store in Utah. In 1929, Ramo won a music scholarship to the University of Utah, where he majored in engineering. Unavailability of jobs persuaded him to pursue post-graduate studies at Caltech, where he won a scholarship. He finished his degree in three years, writing a thesis on accurate measurements of high voltage. In 1936, he took a job at General Electric in Schenectady, NY to work in the new field of microwaves, first in the engineering lab and then in the GE research lab. While at GE he taught a series of courses on electricity and magnetism theory. Out of these lectures came his textbook, Fields and Waves, now in its fifth edition. During the war, he worked on radar. After the war, he moved to Hughes Aircraft where he worked on guided missile systems.