Dartmouth Engineer

Photograph courtesy of Dartmouth College archives

Inventor: Professor James Browning ’44

By Lee Michaelides

Half a century ago Thayer Professor James Browning ’44 was nicknamed Hanover’s firebug for his study of flame stability and combustion. In early work on Project Squid, a government-funded study of propulsion, Browning experimented with methyl naphthalene, which smells like gasoline-soaked mothballs. Not only did his lab reek, but news clips from the era reported that as Browning “passed people on the street on his way homeward, he was the subject of many curious glances from people who suddenly realized who was defiling the usually ‘pine-scented’ atmosphere of Hanover.”

Browning will be remembered best not for his smell but for inventions that fired up the Upper Valley economy. In the 1950s he created a plasma torch that produced flames twice as hot as the sun’s surface. Passing nitrogen or hydrogen through a high-intensity electric arc, the torch cut metal like butter. Browning and Thayer colleague Merle Thorpe founded Thermal Dynamics Corp. to manufacture the device. Within three years the start-up had sales of $1 million. A decade later, Thayer Professor Robert Dean and Richard Couch ’64, Th’65 formed Hypertherm Inc. to produce a water-injection plasma torch that was nine times hotter than the sun. Today that company employs 500 people.

Meanwhile, Browning invented a high-temperature rocket drill called the “Thermoblast.” In 1977 he used it to pierce Antarctica’s 1,400-foot-thick Ross Ice Shelf so scientists could study the water underneath. Drilling time: nine hours — a cool use of a hot technology.

For more photos, visit our Research and Innovations set on Flickr.

Inventor: Otis Ellis Hovey

Otis Ellis Hovey, Dartmouth 1885, Thayer 1887, had two words of advice about what it takes to be an engineer: “Hard work.” To which he added, “You want more than this? Well, I would add ‘common sense.’ So many engineers fail because they do not have the last quality.”

Hovey was, by all accounts, a hard worker, and he had a lot more common sense than his Dartmouth classmate and cousin Richard Hovey, author of the drinking song “Eleazar Wheelock.” As the assistant chief engineer of American Bridge Company Otis Hovey worked on some of the biggest projects of his era, including designing the superstructure of the Belle­fontaine Bridge across the Mississippi and designing and building six emergency dams for the Panama Canal.

Hovey was also the authority on moveable bridges. He wrote the subject bible — Moveable Bridges, published in 1926 — and held patents on three moveable bridge designs which he dubbed Types O, E, and H (which just happen to be his initials.)

Hovey's retractable emergency locks for the Panama Canal swung into place like a moveable bridge.

Hovey’s success didn’t come from common sense alone. The man had imagination. In 1895, at the age of 30, he designed a 3,200-foot bridge across the Hudson River — twice as long as the Brooklyn Bridge (then the world’s longest). Visiting Turkey, he designed a pontoon bridge across Constantinople’s Golden Horn. Though neither bridge was built, his plans displayed his signature blend of diligence, intelligence, and originality.

In his later years Hovey was regularly mistaken for look-alike Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Hovey served on the Thayer Board of Overseers from 1907 until his death in 1941.

— Lee Michaelides

Fore more photos, visit our Research and Innovations set on Flickr.

Former Thayer School research professor Sydney Alonso (left) and Cameron Jones ’75, Th’77 (right), watch Dartmouth music Professor Jon Appleton play the Synclavier I, the world’s first digital synthesizer.

Inventors: Sydney Alsonso, Cameron Jones ’75, Th’77

The Moog synthesizer, the prime electronic instrument of the 1970s, linked a piano keyboard to an analog computer — but it had no memory. Wanting something better, Dartmouth music professor and composer Jon Appleton turned to Thayer School.

The resulting Synclavier was the world’s first digital synthesizer. Built in 1975 by Thayer School research professor Sydney Alonso and programmed by then-B.E. candidate Cameron Jones ’75, Th’77, the Synclavier pioneered digital sampling, hard-disk recording, and professional sound editing. It was just what Appleton wanted. “It did so many things, and the software was so beautifully integrated,” he says.

Alonso and Jones left Dartmouth and went into business, founding New England Digital Corporation in 1977. The Synclavier rapidly became the Rolls Royce of the music industry. Despite price tags ranging from $75,000 to $500,000, the Synclavier was the instrument of choice for Sting, Stevie Wonder, Frank Zappa, and many others. When jazz guitarist Pat Metheny asked how he could plug in, Synclavier engineers worked with him to develop a guitar interface. Pianist Oscar Peterson’s wish for better response led to the touch-sensitive keyboard. Lucasfilm’s interest in the sound editor function resulted in a new software interface that made post-production editing as easy as music recording.

Throughout the 1980s Synclavier led all comers. But as personal computers flooded the market with low-cost digital samplers and audio editing software, Synclavier sales faltered. In 1992 New England Digital Corporation closed its doors.

Today a hundred or so die-hard customers keep the Synclavier alive. Hardware and software are available online.

For more photos, visit our Research and Innovations set on Flickr.

Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Archives.

Inventor: Professor Frank Austin

Necessity is the mother of invention, and for Frank Austin, class of 1895 and a retired professor of electrical engineering at Thayer School, his need was pretty dire. The stock market crash of 1929 left him broke. Austin, a member of the Dartmouth team that produced the first medical X-ray in 1896 and the author of numerous papers and texts on electricity, needed money. He set out to work and invented the Austin Ant House.

At the peak of production in the mid-1930s, 400 ant houses a day left Hanover. Austin’s economic success trickled down to the local economy. The professor paid Hanover kids $4 a quart for the estimated 3.6 million residents he needed for his ant communities. In addition to a basic $3.50 ant house, Austin marketed an Antville Fire House, Antville Coal Mine, an entire town called Ant Boro, and a top-of-the-line Ant Palace, which retailed for $50.

With fortune came fame. Profiles of Austin appeared in The New Yorker, New York Herald Tribune, and Forbes. Ant-house fever eventually cooled, but Austin’s inventiveness did not. A safer hurdle he made to cut down on runners’ injuries was used in the 1936 Olympics. He designed a rocket-propelled grenade and drew up plans for a bombproof airplane factory inside Mt. Washington. Austin eventually relocated to Orlando, Florida, where he ran a roadside museum until his death in 1964.

— Lee Michaelides

For more photos, visit our Research and Innovations set on Flickr.