Mark Serrurier (12 May 1904 in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

– 14 February 1988) is the son of Dutch-born electrical engineer,

Iwan Serrurier Iwan Serrurier (21 September 1878 in Leiden – 1953) was a Dutch people, Dutch-born Electrical engineering, electrical engineer notable for inventing the Moviola. Career Iwan was the son of Lindor Serrurier, director of the ethnographic museu ...

, who created the

Moviola A Moviola () is a device that allows a film editor to view a film while editing. It was the first machine for motion picture editing when it was invented by Iwan Serrurier in 1924. History Iwan Serrurier's original 1917 concept for the Moviola ...

in 1924 which became the technology used for film editing. Mark was a graduate of

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

and went on to work on designs for the

Mt. Palomar Palomar Mountain ( ; es, Monte Palomar ) is a mountain ridge in the Peninsular Ranges in northern San Diego County. It is famous as the location of the Palomar Observatory and Hale Telescope, and known for the Palomar Mountain State Park. His ...

200 inch (5 m)

Hale telescope The Hale Telescope is a , 3.3 reflecting telescope at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, US, named after astronomer George Ellery Hale. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1928, he orchestrated the planning, de ...

. The pioneering truss design he invented for that instrument's massive tube structure (the "

Serrurier truss A Serrurier truss is used in telescope tube assembly construction. The design was created in 1935 by engineer Mark U. Serrurier when he was working on the Mount Palomar Hale telescope.Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Physics, "Reflecting Telescopes" ...

") is still used today in large telescope designs. During World War II, Mark worked at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

testing jet aircraft engines. In 1942, Rolf Sabersky worked in mechanical design on the Southern California Cooperative Wind Tunnel under Serrurier and Hap Richards.Gally, Sid. (1 August 2010). Southern California Cooperative Wind Tunnel. Pasadena Star News. Pasadena, CA. After the war in 1946 Mark took over as president of Moviola Co., his father Iwan’s company. Mark re-designed his fathers invention with many improvements and ran the company until he sold it in 1966. In 1979, Mark accepted a special

Academy Award for Technical Achievement The Technical Achievement Award is one of three Scientific and Technical Awards given from time to time by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. (The other two awards are the Scientific and Engineering Award and the Academy Award of Me ...

''" For the progressive development of the Moviola from the 1924 invention of his father, Iwan Serrurier, to the present Series 20 sophisticated film editing equipment"''. He only accepted after insisting that his late father's name would also appear on the statue. The Oscar sat on Mark's kitchen table until his death from

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, throu ...

1988. Mark Serrurier has a star on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historic landmark which consists of more than 2,700 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Californ ...

for his contributions in Motion Pictures.

References

"INDUSTRY MOURNS ENTREPRENEUR MARK SERRURIER"
* Mark SERRURIER / Guillaume BLANCHARD • l'Astronomie (1980–2006) Vol. 116 (Janvier 2002) page 20-23 1904 births 1988 deaths Academy Award for Technical Achievement winners California Institute of Technology alumni American mechanical engineers Structural engineers 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American inventors Recipients of the Scientific and Technical Academy Award of Merit {{Civil-engineering-stub