January 27, 2020
In
Harold Edgerton
MIT professor Harold Edgerton (a pioneer of high-speed photography) partnered with his graduate student Kenneth Germeshausen to found a small technical consulting firm. The two were joined by fellow MIT graduate student Herbert Grier in 1934. Bernard “Barney” O’Keefe became the fourth member of their fledgling technology group.
The group’s high-speed photography was used to image implosion tests during the Manhattan Project. The same skills in precisely timed high-power electrical pulses also formed a key enabling technology for nuclear weapon triggers. After the war, the group continued their association with the burgeoning military nuclear effort and formally incorporated Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier, Inc. in 1947.
