biography
| name: |
Chaffee, Emery Leon
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1885–1975)
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| biography:
| Physicist with a particular interest in communication devices, born in Somerville, Massachusetts, USA. He taught at Harvard University (1911–53), becoming director of the Cruft Laboratory in 1940. Later he was co-director of the Lyman Laboratory of Physics (1947–53) and director of the Laboratories of Engineering, Science and Applied Physics (1948–53). He is best known for his work on thermionic vacuum tubes. In 1911 he introduced the concept of the Chaffee-gap which was a way of producing continuous oscillations for long-distance telephone transmissions. In 1924 he pioneered work on controlling weather, using aircraft to break up clouds with electrically charged grains of sands. His later work concerned vacuum tubes, electric oscillations, optics, and radio. During World War 2 he concentrated on improving radar. |
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