Alfred Loomis and the Tuxedo Park laboratory

Watching an Amerucan Experience (PBS quality stuff) on him and it’s really interesting. Never heard of him until now but he was very influential in the WW2 victory, developing all sorts of stuff around radar, invented ultrasound technology, and other things. Rich as hell too.

PBS American Experience documentary - if you like documentaries I recommend watching this.

Wiki article on him

Alfred Lee Loomis (November 4, 1887 – August 11, 1975) was an American attorney, investment banker, philanthropist, scientist/physicist, inventor of the LORAN Long Range Navigation System, and a lifelong patron of scientific research. He established the Loomis Laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York, and his role in the development of radar and the atomic bomb contributed to the Allied victory in World War II.[1] He invented the Aberdeen Chronograph for measuring muzzle velocities,[2] contributed significantly (perhaps critically, according to Luis Alvarez[3]) to the development of a ground-controlled approach technology for aircraft, and participated in preliminary meetings of the Manhattan Project.

Loomis also made contributions to biological instrumentation. Working with Edmund Newton Harvey he co-invented the microscope centrifuge,[4] and pioneered techniques for electroencephalography.[5] In 1937, he discovered the sleep K-complex brainwave.[6][7] During the Great Depression, Loomis anonymously paid the Physical Review journal's fees for authors who could not afford them.[8]



President Roosevelt lauded the value of Loomis's work, describing him as being the civilian who was second perhaps only to Churchill, in facilitating the Allied victory in World War II.

Loomis was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1940, and received several honorary degrees: from Wesleyan University he received a D.Sc. in 1932, from Yale University an M.Sc. in 1933, and from the University of California an LL.D. in 1941