Jan Aleksander Rajchman (

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, 10 August 1911 – 1 April 1989) was a Polish electrical engineer and computer pioneer.

Biography

Jan Aleksander was son of Ludwik Rajchman and Maria Bojańczyk. His father was a Polish bacteriologist and the founder of UNICEF. He was born in London, where his parents temporarily lived, and where his father held various positions at the Royal Institute of Public Health and King's College. He received the Diploma of Electrical Engineering from the

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology The Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology are two institutes of higher education in Switzerland (part of the ETH Domain): * Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland *Swiss people ...

in Zurich in 1935, and became a Doctor of Science in 1938. Rajchman emigrated to

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...

in 1935. He joined

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...

Laboratory directed by

Vladimir K. Zworykin Vladimir Kosma Zworykin; or with the patronymic as ''Kosmich''; or russian: Кузьмич, translit=Kuz'mich, label=none. Zworykin anglicized his name to ''Vladimir Kosma Zworykin'', replacing the patronymic with the name ''Kosma'' as a middle na ...

in January 1936. He was a prolific inventor with 107 US patents among others logic circuits for

arithmetic Arithmetic () is an elementary part of mathematics that consists of the study of the properties of the traditional operations on numbers—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and extraction of roots. In the 19th c ...

. He conceived the first

read-only memory Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing s ...

, which was widely used in early computers. He conceived and developed the selectively addressable storage tube, the ill-fated Selectron tube, and the

core memory Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centr ...

. He was a Fellow of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

(IEEE), and a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

. He is also a member of

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

, the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM), the Physical Society, the

New York Academy of Sciences The New York Academy of Sciences (originally the Lyceum of Natural History) was founded in January 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural History. It is the fourth oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, nonprofit organization wit ...

, and a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...

and the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memor ...

. He received the 1960 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award and the 1974 IEEE Edison Medal ''For a creative career in the development of electronic devices and for pioneering work in computer memory systems.''

US patents

* Magnetic System, 1957

Sources

IEEE History SiteSmithsonian Oral History, Interview with RajchmanMemorial TributeScientist of the Day - Jan Rajchman - Linda Hall Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rajchman 1911 births 1989 deaths American electrical engineers Polish emigrants to the United States American people of Polish-Jewish descent Fellow Members of the IEEE IEEE Edison Medal recipients Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Fellows of the American Physical Society 20th-century American engineers