|
|
|
|
Sperry, Elmer Ambrose
| (1860-1930), U.S. mechanical engineer and industrialist, ASME's 48th president (1929-30), invented many electrical devices including a gyrocompass (although German inventor H. Anschutz-Kaempfe is credited with the first workable gyrocompass in 1908) and a nonmagnetic navigational aid (1910). Sperry extended the gyro principle to the guidance of torpedoes, to gyropilots for the steering of ships and for stabilizing airplanes and finally to a ship stabilizer. His first gyrocompass was installed on the U.S. battleship Delaware in 1911. Overall, Sperry founded eight manufacturing companies and had more than 400 patents to his name in a diverse range of fields from dynamos to transportation. ASME joined with four other professional societies to name an annual transportation award for Sperry in 1955. He was born Oct. 12, 1860, Cortland, New York, and died June 16, 1930, Brooklyn, New York. |
|
|
|
|
