Russell A. Kirsch (June 20, 1929August 11, 2020) was an American engineer at the National Bureau of Standards (now known as the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical s ...

). He was recognized as the developer of the first digital

image scanner An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop ''flatbed scanner'' ...

, and subsequently scanned the world's first digital photograph-- an image of his infant son.

Background

Education

Kirsch was born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

on June 20, 1929. His parents were Jewish emigrants from

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

and

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

. He attended the

Bronx High School of Science The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Sp ...

, graduating in 1946. He continued his education at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

in 1950,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

in 1952, and later the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

Personal life

Kirsch was married to Joan (née Levin) Kirsch for 65 years until his death. Together, they had four children: Walden, Peter, Lindsey, and Kara. Kirsch spent most of his professional life in Washington, D.C., where he was affiliated with the

National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

for nearly 50 years. He moved to

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...

, in 2001 after his retirement. Kirsch died on August 11, 2020, at his home in Portland. He was 91 and had suffered from dementia in the time leading up to his death.

Career

In 1951 Kirsch joined the National Bureau of Standards as part of the team that ran SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer). SEAC was the U.S.'s first

stored-program computer A stored-program computer is a computer that stores program instructions in electronically or optically accessible memory. This contrasts with systems that stored the program instructions with plugboards or similar mechanisms. The definition ...

to become operational, having entered service in 1950. In 1957, Kirsch's group developed a digital

, to "trace variations of intensity over the surfaces of photographs", and made the first digital scans. One of the first photographs scanned, a picture of Kirsch's three-month-old son, was captured as just 30,976

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...

s,Kirsch, R. A., et. al (December, 1957)
"Experiments in Processing Pictorial Information with a Digital Computer"
',''

, archived fro
the original
on December 21, 2016 a 176 × 176 array, in an area 5 cm × 5 cm (2" x 2"). The bit depth was only one

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...

per pixel, stark black and white with no intermediate shades of gray, but, by combining several scans made using different scanning thresholds,

grayscale In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a grayscale image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample representing only an ''amount'' of light; that is, it carries only intensity information. Graysc ...

information could also be acquired. They used the computer to extract

line drawings Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Arts ...

, count objects, recognize alphanumeric characters, and produce

oscilloscope An oscilloscope (informally a scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying electrical voltages as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time. The main purposes are to display repetiti ...

displays. He also proposed the Kirsch operator for edge detection in images. Later in life, Kirsch became the director of research of the Sturvil Corporation and an advisory editor for the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

(IEEE). He was the advisory editor of the journal ''Languages of Design''.

Accomplishments

In 2003 Kirsch's scanned picture of his son was named by ''Life'' magazine one of the "100 Photographs That Changed the World" due to its importance in the development of

digital photography Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image ...

. The original image is in the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum bec ...

. Although Kirsch did not work for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

, his invention led to technology crucial to

space exploration Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by uncrewed robo ...

, including the Apollo Moon landing. Medical advancements such as Sir Godfrey Hounsfield’s CAT scan can also be attributed to Kirsch's research.

References

External links

Kirsch talking about the SEAC computer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirsch, Russell 1929 births 2020 deaths American computer scientists Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni The Bronx High School of Science alumni Scientists from New York (state) American people of Russian-Jewish descent American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Jewish American scientists 21st-century American Jews