Harvey Fletcher
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Harvey Fletcher (September 11, 1884 - July 23, 1981) was an American physicist. He was credited with the invention of the hearing aid and the audiometer.
Fletcher was born in Provo, Utah, and was educated at Brigham Young University (BYU).
As a graduate student, his dissertation research was on methods to determine the charge of an electron. This included the now famous oil drop experiment commonly attributed to his advisor and collaborator, Robert Millikan. Professor Millikan took sole credit, in return for Fletcher claiming full authorship on a related result for his dissertation.[1] Millikan went on to win the 1923 Nobel Prize for Physics, in part for this work, and Fletcher kept the agreement a secret until his death.[2]
Fletcher is sometimes known as "the father of stereophonic sound", but this is inaccurate. His technique relied on spaced pairs of microphones. Modern stereo, based primarily on coincident techniques, was conceived by Alan Blumlein of EMI at about the same time and aimed to overcome the deficiencies in Fletcher's method. Blumlein applied for the key patent in this field in 1931.
Fletcher was the Founding Dean of the BYU College of Engineering (now the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology).
He died on July 23, 1981, after a stroke.
[edit] References
- ^ David Goodstein (Jan-Feb 2001). "In the Case of Robert Andrews Millikan". American Scientist: 54-60.
- ^ Harvey Fletcher (June, 1982). "My Work with Millikan on the Oil-drop Experiment". Physics Today.
[edit] External links
- "In Memory of Harvey Fletcher" - a brief biography and collection of links
- Department of Communication Disorders at BYU - Audiology department at BYU
