Abraham Savitzky (May 29, 1919 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

– February 5, 1999 in

Naples, Florida Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the historical city (i.e. in the immediate vicinity of downtown Naples) was 19,115. Naples is a principal city of the Naples-Marco Island, Flori ...

) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

analytical chemist.

Biography

Savitzky received his bachelor's degree from the New York State College for Teachers (now

University at Albany, SUNY The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...

) in 1941. After serving in the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he obtained a master's degree in 1947 and a Ph.D. in 1949 in physical chemistry from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. While at Columbia, he co-invented the Savitzky-Halford ratio recording spectrophotometer, which was manufactured by Perkin-Elmer as the Model 13. In 1950, after working at Columbia for a year as a research associate in electron microscopy, he began a long career with the

Perkin-Elmer Corporation PerkinElmer, Inc., previously styled Perkin-Elmer, is an American global corporation focused in the business areas of diagnostics, life science research, food, environmental and industrial testing. Its capabilities include detection, imaging, inf ...

, where he was hired by Vincent J. Coates. Savitzky started with Perkin-Elmer as a staff scientist who was chiefly concerned with the design and development of infrared instruments. He rapidly moved up the ranks in the corporation. By 1956 he was named Perkin-Elmer's new product coordinator for the Instrument Division, and as the years passed, he continued to gain more and more recognition for his work in the company. Most of his work with Perkin-Elmer focused on computer-aided analytical chemistry, data reduction, infrared spectroscopy,

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...

systems, and computer plotting. He retired from Perkin-Elmer in 1985, where he had worked for 35 years, the last 10 as a principal scientist. After his retirement Savitzky became the president of Silvermine Resources, which was concerned mostly with microprocessor-based computing systems for analytical instrumentation and bibliographic information retrieval, where he remained for several years. Abraham Savitzky specialized in the computerization of analytical instrumentation, more specifically in the digital processing of

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

spectra and was awarded seven

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

in that field. During his long career he presented numerous papers and wrote several manuscripts. Among them and while employed by Perkin-Elmer, Savitzky presented a paper describing the Savitzky–Golay Smoothing Filter for digital filtering. This paper, which is the collaborative effort of Savitzky and Marcel J. E. Golay, is one of the most famous, respected, and heavily cited articles in its field. In recognition of his many significant accomplishments in the field of analytical chemistry and computer science, he received the Honorary Membership Award of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy in 1996, the Williams–Wright Award from the Coblentz Society in 1986. Savitzky was also a member of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...

, the

American Physics Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

, the

Optical Society of America Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA) and before that as the Optical Society of America) is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conference ...

, and many other professional organizations. He died in 1999. The Savitzky Family Science and Technology Book Fund was created at the Wilton (Connecticut) Public Library, honoring Abe and Evelyn.

References

External links

"In Memoriam: Dr. Abraham H. Savitzky", outdated -2002- web-page with some family information

"Abraham Savitzky Papers"

Science History Institute The Science History Institute is an institution that preserves and promotes understanding of the history of science. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it includes a library, museum, archive, research center and conference center. It was fo ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Savitzky, Abraham 20th-century American chemists 1919 births 1999 deaths United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni