Gerhard Julius Richard Fischer later Gerhard Julius Richard Fisher, Gerhard R. Fisher (March 18, 1899 – May 2, 1988) was a U.S. entrepreneur of German descent. He contributed to the development and popularity of the hand held

metal detector A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. A metal detector consists of a control box, an adjustable shaft, and ...

Biography

Fisher was born in 1899 in Landeshut, Silesia, to Richard Hugo Georg Arthur Fischer, an engineer, and his wife Margaretha Julia Fischer née Job. His mother was from

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

, where the parents also married. Around 1906, the Fischer family moved to

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. After studying electrical engineering at the Dresden University, Fischer emigrated to the U.S. In 1931, he founded Fisher Research Laboratory, Inc. in

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, where he served as president until his retirement in 1967. While working with aircraft radio detection finders environment-dependent changes became apparent. From the interference by metal, he concluded that the device must also be suitable for detecting metal. Fisher shared the idea with

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

who correctly predicted the proliferation of hand held metal detector use. In 1937, he patented his metal detector. He died 1988 in Palo Alto.

Inventions

Although the actual inventor of the hand-held metal detector is disputed, the hand-held metal detector was made in 1925 and was first patented by Dr. Gerhard Fisher in 1931. A metal detector had been invented some forty years earlier (1881) by

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (; born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born Canadian Americans, Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He als ...

for the sole purpose of locating a lead bullet in President James A. Garfield.

Fisher Research Laboratory

He founded ''Fisher Research Laboratory'' to develop and market the hand held metal detectors in 1931.

References

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External links

Fisher Research Laboratory – Company HistoryMetal detecting history
(MDgear) 20th-century German inventors Engineers from Bavaria German emigrants to the United States Year of birth missing Year of death missing {{germany-engineer-stub