Robert Van de Graaff

Robert Jemison "Tee" Van de Graaff (born December 20, 1901 in Tuscaloosa – died January 16, 1967 in Boston, Massachusetts) was a physicist and inventor of the Van de Graaff generator.

Robert was the son of Adrian Van de Graaff and the former Minnie Cherokee, granddaughter of Tuscaloosa planter and civic leader Robert Jemison, Jr, for whom he was named. He grew up in Jemison's mansion and attended Tuscaloosa City Schools. In high school he starred as the quarterback of the Black Bears football team coached by his brother Adrian Jr, but broke his leg during his senior year. He spent his convalescence studying books about engines and entered the University in 1918 without ever graduating high school. Robert played for Alabama's "scrub" team in college, but gave up football to concentrate on engineering. During the summers he worked on steamboats on the Black Warrior River. For his thesis project he designed an improved method of grading iron ore on a conveyor. After graduating he took a job working on high-voltage equipment for Alabama Power.

On a grant funded by the University, Van de Graaff attended the Sorbonne in Paris in 1924. He completed his Ph.D. in physics on a Rhodes Scholarship at Queen's College, Oxford in 1928.

Van de Graaff then became a research fellow at Princeton University in New Jersey where he built the first working model of the proposed high-voltage belt-charged generator that now bears his name. He improved on the apparatus while conducting further research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Van de Graaff was the designer of the Van de Graaff generator, a device which produces High voltages. In 1929, Van de Graaff developed his first generator with help from Nicholas Burke (producing 80,000 volts) at Princeton University; by 1931, he had constructed a much larger generator, capable of generating 7 million volts. He was a National Research Fellow, and from 1931 to 1934 a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became an associate professor in 1934 (staying there until 1960).

During World War II, Van de Graaff was director of the High Voltage Radiographic Project. After World War II, he co-founded the High Voltage Engineering Corporation (HVEC). During the 1950s, he invented the insulating-core transformer (producing high-voltage direct current). He also developed tandem generator technology. The American Physical Society awarded him the T. Bonner prize (1965) for the development of electrostatic accelerators.

Van de Graaff died in Boston, Massachusetts.

• Template:US patent -- "Electrostatic Generator"
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• US2922905 -- "Apparatus For Reducing Electron Loading In Positive-Ion Accelerators"
• Template:US patent -- "High Voltage Electromagnetic Apparatus Having An Insulating Magnetic Core"
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• US3239702 -- "Multi-Disk Electromagnetic Power Machinery"
• Template:US patent -- "Inclined field High Voltage Vacuum Tubes"

External links and references

• Extended Bio
• Wiplich, M., "Short Biography Of Robert Jemison Van de Graaff". 2001. [bnl.gov]
• Trump, J.G., Merrill, F.H., and Safford, F.J., "Van de Graaff Generator". Rev. Sci. Instrum., 9 (1938) 398
• "Dr. Van de Graaff's large generator". MIT.
• "VDG for hobbyists and science fairs"
• "History of the Van de Graaff Generator". Museum of Science, Boston. 2004.
• Brenni, Paolo, "The Van de Graaff Generator -- An Electrostatic Machine for the 20th Century". Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society No. 63. 1999.

• "Van de Graaff Robert C2". Robert J. Van de Graaff explains his electrostatic generator to Karl T. Compton, MIT President, shortly after his demonstration at the APS meeting in 1931. [aip.org]
• Build your own VDG