Alfred Lee Loomis

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Alfred Lee Loomis (November 4, 1887-August 11, 1975) was an American lawyer, investment banker, physicist, philanthropist, and patron of scientific research. He established the Loomis Laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York, and his role in the development of radar is considered instrumental in the Allied victory in World War II.

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[edit] Early years

Born in New York City, New York, Loomis was the son of Henry Patterson Loomis and Julia Stimson. His first cousin was Henry Stimson, secretary of war and secretary of state in the Taft administration. Loomis' father died when Alfred was very young, and Stimson became a great influence on him. He did his undergraduate work in math and science at Yale University, and graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1912. After graduation Loomis worked in a law firm, Winthrop and Stimson, from 1912 on corporate law.

[edit] Military service and a first career in finance

In 1917, with the United States' entry into World War I, Loomis volunteered for military service. He was commissioned as a captain and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He worked in ballistics at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where he invented the "Aberdeen Chronograph", the first portable instrument able to measure muzzle velocity and striking power of bullets. At Aberdeen, he met and worked with Johns Hopkins physicist Robert W. Wood, under whose influence Loomis' longtime interest in inventing and gadgetry evolved into a serious pursuit of experimental and practical physics.

In the 1920s, Loomis collaborated with his brother-in-law Landon K. Thorne to take their firm, Bonbright and Company, from the verge of bankruptcy to becoming a preeminent U.S. investment banking-house specializing in public utilities. Loomis made money by financing the electric companies as they wired up America, and he sat on the boards of several banks and electric utilities. Loomis and Thorne pioneered the concept of the holding company, consolidating many of the electric companies on the East Coast.

Loomis increased his fortune further by insider trading practices which have since been made illegal. Foreseeing the Wall Street Crash of 1929, he had converted most of his investments into cash, and got even richer as Wall Street floundered, by buying back in cheaply. His hobbies included racing America's Cup yachts against the Vanderbilts and the Astors, and science.

[edit] The Loomis Laboratory

With his considerable wealth, Loomis increasingly indulged his interest in science. He had his own laboratory in his mansion within the exclusive enclave of Tuxedo Park in New York. He and his small staff conducted pioneering studies in spectrometry, high-intensity sound waves, electro-encephalography, and the precise measurement of time. He was eventually elected to the National Academy of Sciences for his work in physics.

His laboratory was the best of its kind, with equipment that few universities could afford. Quickly his reputation spread, particularly in Europe where money was scarce for science. Loomis often sent first-class tickets to famous European scientists to visit the USA. They would be picked up in his limousine and taken to Tuxedo Park. At first the scientific community called him an "eccentric dabbler," but soon his laboratory became the meeting place for some of the most famous scientists of the time, such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, James Franck and Enrico Fermi. Scientists who worked personally with him were convinced of his capability and industry. His wealth, connections, and charm enabled him to be highly persuasive.

In 1939, Loomis began a collaboration with Ernest Lawrence, and was instrumental in financing Lawrence's project to construct a 184-inch cyclotron. By this time, he had become a prominent figure in experimental physics, and had moved his Tuxedo Park operations to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he entered upon a joint operation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

[edit] Loomis in World War Two

In the late 1930s Loomis' science team turned their attention to radio detection studies, building a crude microwave radar which they deployed in the back of a van. They drove it out to a golf course and aimed it at the neighboring highway and then took it to the local airport and tracked small planes.

Loomis had visited the United Kingdom and knew many of the British scientists who were working on radar. Britain, at war with Germany, was being bombed nightly by the German Luftwaffe, while America was still trying to stay out of the war. In 1940 the British Tizard Mission visited the United States, desperately seeking help to further develop and produce their technology. British scientists had developed the cavity magnetron, which allowed radar to be small enough to be installed in aircraft. Upon hearing that the British magnetron had one thousand times the output of the best American transmitter, Loomis invited them to Tuxedo Park. Because he had done more work in this area than anyone else in the country, Loomis was then appointed by Vannevar Bush to the National Defense Research Committee as chairman of the Microwave Committee and vice-chairman of Division D (Detection, Controls, Instruments). Within a month, he selected a building on the MIT campus for a laboratory, dubbed the MIT Radiation Lab. He pressed for the development of radar in spite of the Army's initial skepticism, and arranged funding for the Rad Lab until federal money arrived.

While the management of the MIT Rad Lab was done by director Lee DuBridge, Loomis took his usual role of keeping the scientists clear of obstacles, and providing the encouragement needed when success appeared doubtful. The resulting 10cm radar was a key technology that enabled the sinking of U-boats, spotted incoming German bombers for the British, and provided cover for the D-Day landing. Loomis used all his business acumen, and his contacts in industry, to ensure that no time was wasted in its development. DuBridge later commented, "Radar won the war; the atom bomb ended it."

In later years he invented LORAN, the most popular long-range navigation system until the advent of GPS. Loomis also made a significant contribution to the development of ground-controlled approach technology, a precursor of today's instrument-landing systems that used radar to permit ground controllers to "talk-down" airplane pilots when poor visibility made visual landings difficult or impossible.

[edit] Later years and legacy

President Roosevelt recognized the value of Loomis's work and described him as second perhaps only to Churchill as the civilian most responsible for the Allied victory in World War II.

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1940, and received honorary degrees from Wesleyan University (D.Sc.,1932), Yale University (M.Sc 1933), and the University of California (LL.D 1941).

Loomis was married to a beautiful, but delicate and depressive wife, who spent time recovering in institutions. He had three sons by her. However he also conducted a covert affair with Manette Hobart, a colleague's wife. His divorce and immediate marriage to Manette in 1945 scandalised New York society, but he spent thirty happy years with her.

Loomis, always a private person, retreated from public life entirely after closing the Rad Lab and finishing his related obligations in 1947. He retired to East Hampton with his new wife. He never again gave an interview.

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[edit] External links

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