Leonard Reiffel (September 30, 1927 – April 15, 2017) was an American physicist, author and educator. Born in Chicago, Reiffel was an electrical engineering student for a number of years before entering into research fields. He collaborated with
Enrico Fermi,
Carl Sagan, and members of
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...
.
Reiffel also worked for
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
and the
Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...
, and won a
Peabody Award for his work on the radio program ''The World Tomorrow''. His experience with broadcasting led him to invent the
telestrator
A telestrator is a device that allows its operator to draw a freehand sketch over a moving or still video image. Also known as a video marker, this device is often used in sports and weather broadcasts to diagram and analyze sports plays or inco ...
as a visual aid for his programming; Reiffel held over fifty different patents for his inventions.
Early life
Leonard Reiffel was born in Chicago on September 30, 1927. His father was Carl Reiffel, a silversmith credited with inventing a slide saxophone. His mother, the former Sophie Miller, was a district superintendent in the Chicago public school system.
The younger Reiffel attended
Theodore Roosevelt High School, before earning a bachelor's and master's degree as well as a doctorate in electrical engineering from the
Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...
between 1947 and 1953.
Career
Universities and inventions
Reiffel began his career at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
's
Institute for Nuclear Studies
__NOTOC__
The Institute for Nuclear Studies was founded September 1945 as part of the University of Chicago with Samuel King Allison as director. On November 20, 1955, it was renamed The Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies. The name was s ...
, helping
Enrico Fermi construct a 450-inch
cyclotron
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...
.
From there, Reiffel returned to the university at which he had studied, the Illinois Institute of Technology. Here, Reiffel was Group Vice President of the
IIT Research Institute
IIT Research Institute (IITRI),Greenbaum & Wheeler (1967), cover sheet (technical paper).McCormac; et al. (1967), p. i (book)."IITRI" (or "iiTRi") is used on cover sheets of technical paper documents in prior decades. also known historically and ...
(formerly known as the Armour Research Foundation). During his tenure at the university, Reiffel created and patented over fifty different inventions, which earned him four separate R&D 100 Awards.
Reiffel also collaborated with German scientists recruited in America as part of
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...
, working on an early prototype for a
railgun
A railgun or rail gun is a linear motor device, typically designed as a weapon, that uses electromagnetic force to launch high velocity projectiles. The projectile normally does not contain explosives, instead relying on the projectile's high ...
.
NASA
Reiffel was involved in several positions in NASA's
Apollo program, moving from being a consultant on the possibility of life on the Moon
to become deputy director of the project,
a post he held from 1965 to 1969.
During this time, Reiffel was also put in charge of
Project A119
Project A119, also known as A Study of Lunar Research Flights, was a top-secret plan developed in 1958 by the United States Air Force. The aim of the project was to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon, which would help in answering some of th ...
, a
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, 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 ...
project intending to detonate a nuclear warhead on the Moon. Reiffel worked alongside
Carl Sagan and
Gerard Kuiper
Gerard Peter Kuiper (; ; born Gerrit Pieter Kuiper; 7 December 1905 – 23 December 1973) was a Dutch astronomer, planetary scientist, selenographer, author and professor. He is the eponymous namesake of the Kuiper belt.
Kuiper is ...
on the project.
Reiffel also chaired the Interagency Manned Space Flight Experiments Board for several years, a body which worked alongside NASA, the United States Air Force, and the
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...
.
Broadcasting
Reiffel's work on radio and television has included ''Backyard Safari'', ''Dimensions on Tomorrow's Living'' and ''The World Tomorrow''.
''Backyard Safari'' was nominated for an
Emmy Award,
whilst Reiffel was honored with a
Peabody Award in 1968 for his work on ''The World Tomorrow''.
Reiffel's time as a broadcaster led to him developing the
telestrator
A telestrator is a device that allows its operator to draw a freehand sketch over a moving or still video image. Also known as a video marker, this device is often used in sports and weather broadcasts to diagram and analyze sports plays or inco ...
, a device for drawing over still or moving video images; the device is now commonly employed by
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
broadcasters while discussing
plays
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* P ...
.
Reiffel first used the telestrator as part of ''Backyard Safari'' before convincing
WBBM-TV
WBBM-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington Str ...
weatherman
John Coughlin to use it as part of his forecasts; it was from there that sports anchor
Johnny Morris introduced its use to sports broadcasting.
Other work
Reiffel also worked as an artwork authenticator for the
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the largest ...
in
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, investigating the authenticity of work by
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bo ...
in 2002.
[ ] In 1979, he published the science fiction novel ''The Contaminant''.
He also acted as a consultant to the governments of
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
and
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
following the
Chernobyl incident
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two n ...
; this experience led him to write an unpublished second novel about nuclear terrorism.
Death
Reiffel died of complications from pancreatic cancer in Chicago on April 15, 2017. He was survived by his second wife Nancy Reiffel, and sons Evan and David.
Bibliography
Novels
*
Critical studies and reviews of Reiffel's work
;''The contaminant''
*
Footnotes
References
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reiffel, Leonard
1927 births
2017 deaths
American physicists
Illinois Institute of Technology alumni
Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
Peabody Award winners
NASA people
Operation Paperclip
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Deaths from pancreatic cancer