science · 08 March 1975 · 50 years ago
death
Died 8 Mar 1975 at age 89 (born 15 Apr 1885).
Emory Leon Chaffee was an American physicist whose invention of the “Chaffee Gap” spark-type method to produce continuous high-frequency electrical oscillations for radio transmission was an outcome of research work for his Ph.D. thesis (1911). The spark gap was between the end faces of metal rods (a copper anode and an alumium cathode), in an atmosphere of moist hydrogen in a sealed chamber. The d.c. source circuit included choke coils. The rods were cooled by external radiating fins. He also specialized in the field of thermionic vacuum tubes and test measurements, such as an accurate direct determination of the value of e/m, the ratio of electron charge and its mass. Later he became interested in the eye, doing experimental work with William T. Bovie on the electrical response of the retina, which Chaffee amplified with a vacuum tube circuit.
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