Clarence Weston Hansell (January 20, 1898 – ) was an American research

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

who pioneered investigation into the biological effects of

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

air. He was granted over 300 US patents, including, in the 1930s, a precursor to the modern ink jet printer that could print 750 words a minute, its data received via radio telegraph. Only

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

held more patents.

Life and education

Hansell was born in Medaryville, Indiana on January 20, 1898. He graduated from

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1919. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Electrical Engineering in 1952.

Career

Hansell founded the

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

Radio Transmission Laboratory at Rocky Point, New York, Long Island in 1925, and headed the lab for over 30 years. He was also involved in

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

and

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

s research and suggested the invention of polarized sunglasses. His interest in the biological effects of

ized air was spurred in 1932 when he noticed that the moods of one of his colleagues at Rocky Point Laboratory swung in response to the ions being generated by their equipment. He noted that when the equipment generated negative ions, his colleague's mood was upbeat. Conversely, positive ions generated a downbeat mood. Hansell researched the therapeutic possibilities of negative ions throughout his life. Current scientific studies support his findings, and negative ion therapy may be useful in alleviating depression in some people. He died in 1967. His papers are kept at State University of New York, Stony Brook.

References

On the biological and mood-altering effects of negative ions

External links

Image of CW Hansell
1898 births 1967 deaths Purdue University College of Engineering alumni 20th-century American engineers People from Pulaski County, Indiana 20th-century American inventors {{US-inventor-stub