Day 11 Granville T. Woods – 28 days of Black History in Technology

February 11th, 2011 1 Comment

Granville T. Woods was born in Columbus Ohio April 23, 1856. He attended school till he was 10 he served as and apprenticeship in a machine shop and learned the trades of machinist and blacksmith. Woods realized that learning and education were essential for developing critical skills he went to night school and took some private lessons.

Woods invested his spare time in studying electronics, later he took a mechanical engineering course in an eastern college.  While his skills were great he couldn’t get anywhere in the jobs he was getting.

Woods was a great electrician and inventive genius, Woods invented fifteen appliances for electric railways.  In 1880 he had established his own shop in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Woods later succeeded in selling many of his inventions to some of the county’s largest corporations.

TBTR

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Day 10 Otis Boykin – 28 days of Black History in Technology

February 10th, 2011 2 Comments

Today we talk about Otis Frank Boykin born August 29, 1920 he was an inventor and engineer. Boykin invented more than 25 electronic devices. One of his inventions was an improved electrical resistor for computers, radios, televisions, and other electronic devices.

Mr. Boykin also worked on one of his most famous inventions a variable resistor used in guided missiles. Did you also know that Mr. Boykin created a control unit for the artificial heart pacemaker. The pacemaker essentially uses electrical impulses to maintain a regular heartbeat.

Ironically Mr. Boykin himself, died of heart failure in 1982. I wonder if the device, he helped make, that saved so many lives, would have helped to save his own?

Tell us what you think leave a comment

TBTR

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Day 9 George Edward Alcorn, Jr. – 28 days of Black History in Technology

February 9th, 2011 Comments Off

George Edward Alcorn, Jr.

George Alcorn co-patented a Method of fabricating an imaging X-ray spectrometer. Patent #4618380 issued on October 21, 1986.  He received his four year Bachelor of Science degree from Occidental College.  Later he earned his Masters from Howard University in Nuclear Physics in 1963.  An earned his PH.D in Atomic and Molecular Physics also from Howard University.

Dr. Alcorn hold eight patents in the US and Europe on semiconductor technology his area of research includes:

  • Adaptation of chemical ionization mass spectrometers for the detection of amino acids and development of other experimental methods for planetary life detection;
  • Classified research involved with missile reeentry and missile defense;
  • Design and building of space instrumentation, atmospheric contaminant sensors, magnetic mass spectrometers, mass analyzers;
  • Development of new concepts of magnet design and the invention of a new type of x-ray spectrometer.

Dr. Alcorn spent time as a research engineer with the Space Science Division of North American Rockwell.  While there he performed computer analysis of launch trajectories and orbital mechanics involved missiles.  He worked on the Titan I and II and the Saturn IV.

TBTR

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Day 8 Philip Emeagwali – 28 days of Black History in Technology

February 8th, 2011 Comments Off

Copyright: emeagwali.com

Philip Emeagwali is one of two winners of the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize. The Gordon Bell Prize is awarded by the Association for Computer Machinery in conjunction with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The award is given each year at the Supercomputing Conference to recognize outstanding achievement in high-performance computing applications.

Philip won the award for his use of Connection Machine supercomputer to help analyze petroleum fields. He programmed the Connection Machine to compute a world record 3.1 billion calculations per second using 65,536 processors to simulate oil reservoirs.

The supercomputer contained 4096 nodes with each node consisting of 16 processors.  I’m not sure but this sort of sounds like grid computing, I’m guessing this was Linux, or Unix…LOL

In the caption of this picture on emeagwali’s site it says that he helped give birth to the supercomputer, the technology that spawned the internet.  While he may have achived this awesome accomplishment I don’t think we can she he gave birth to the supercomputer.  On top of that his site also states that he is “Father of the Internet”.  I’m just saying that’s a bit much, but the accomplishment was a great addition to modern computing.

TBTR

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Day 7 Thomas Stewart – 28 days of Black History in Technology

February 7th, 2011 Comments Off

Thomas Stewart patented a new type of mop, but that’s not why he is listed as Day 7 Black History in Technology.  He is listed because he co-patented an improved station and street indicator in 1883. It was used with railways and street cars to signal what road or street the vehicles were crossing.

Their indicator would automatically activate a signal by means of a lever on the side of the track.

While this fact might be short, his contribution along with William Edward Johnson, has saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives.

TBTR

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