Jacob Rabinow (January 8, 1910 – September 11, 1999) was an American

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 ...

and inventor. He earned a total of 229 U.S. patents on a variety of mechanical, optical and electrical devices.

Biography

Rabinow was born in

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

, Ukraine, on January 8, 1910. In 1919, his family moved to China, then in 1921 to the United States. He graduated from the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

with a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering in 1933, and a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1934. His career as an inventor began when he was hired as a mechanical engineer in 1938 by 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 sc ...

(now 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 Outline of p ...

, or NIST). He made many developments there, mainly in defense systems, and eventually became Chief of the Electro-Mechanical Ordnance Division at NBS before leaving in 1954 to form his own company. During this time, Rabinow invented and patented a number of revolutionary devices. Among them are the first disc-shaped

magnetic storage Magnetic storage or magnetic recording is the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetisation in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is acc ...

media for computers (1954), the magnetic particle clutch (1956), the first straight-line phonograph (1959), the first self-regulating clock (1960) and his famous "reading machine" (1960) which was the first to use the "best match" principle and was the basis for the reading, sorting and processing machines used today by banks and post offices. In 1964, Rabinow's company joined

Control Data Corporation Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, the Burroughs Corporation, and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the N ...

(CDC), and until 1972 he was Vice President of CDC and head of the Rabinow Advanced Development Laboratory. In 1968 Rabinow formed the RABCO company to manufacture straight-line phonographs, and the company was later bought out by Harman Kardon Corporation. In 1972 he returned to NBS where he was Chief Research Engineer until his retirement in 1989. In addition to his patents, Jacob Rabinow was awarded many other merits for his scientific achievements. Among them are the President's Certificate of Merit (1948), the Industrial R&D Scientist of the Year Award (1960), the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

's Harry Diamond Award (1977), and the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award (1998). He published his book, ''Inventing for Fun and Profit'', in 1989. He also delivered many speeches and lectures on inventions and technology, as a guest at many educational institutions and on several television and radio shows. He also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as

Society for Science & the Public Society for Science, formerly known as Science Service and later Society for Science and the Public, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of science, through its science education programs and publications, including ...

, from 1971 to 1973. The Jacob Rabinow Applied Research Award was created by the

(now the

, or NIST) and first presented in 1975 for outstanding achievements in the practical application of the results of scientific or engineering research. Rabinow was inducted into the

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a US patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also operate ...

in 2005.

External links

NIST: his 230 patents

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabinow, Jacob 1910 births 1999 deaths Lemelson–MIT Prize 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American inventors City College of New York alumni American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Jewish American scientists Jewish Ukrainian scientists Soviet emigrants to the United States Engineers from Kharkiv