Russell A. Kirsch (June 20, 1929August 11, 2020) was an American engineer at the National Bureau of Standards (now known as the
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
). He was recognized as the developer of the first digital
image scanner
An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop ''flatbed scanner'' ...
, and subsequently scanned the world's first digital photograph-- an image of his infant son.
Background
Education
Kirsch was born in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
on June 20, 1929. His parents were Jewish emigrants from
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
.
[ He attended the ]Bronx High School of Science
The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Spec ...
, graduating in 1946. He continued his education at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
in 1950, Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in 1952, and later the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
.[
]
Personal life
Kirsch was married to Joan (née Levin) Kirsch for 65 years until his death. Together, they had four children: Walden, Peter, Lindsey, and Kara.[ Kirsch spent most of his professional life in Washington, D.C., where he was affiliated with the ]National Bureau of Standards
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
for nearly 50 years. He moved to Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, in 2001[ after his retirement.]
Kirsch died on August 11, 2020, at his home in Portland. He was 91 and had suffered from dementia in the time leading up to his death.[
]
Career
In 1951 Kirsch joined the National Bureau of Standards as part of the team that ran SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer). SEAC was the U.S.'s first stored-program computer
A stored-program computer is a computer that stores program instructions in electronically or optically accessible memory. This contrasts with systems that stored the program instructions with plugboards or similar mechanisms.
The definition i ...
to become operational, having entered service in 1950.
In 1957, Kirsch's group developed a digital image scanner
An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop ''flatbed scanner'' ...
, to "trace variations of intensity over the surfaces of photographs", and made the first digital scans. One of the first photographs scanned, a picture of Kirsch's three-month-old son, was captured as just 30,976 pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
s,[Kirsch, R. A., et. al (December, 1957)]
"Experiments in Processing Pictorial Information with a Digital Computer"
','' National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
, archived fro
the original
on December 21, 2016 a 176 × 176 array, in an area 5 cm × 5 cm (2" x 2"). The bit depth was only one bit
The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...
per pixel, stark black and white with no intermediate shades of gray, but, by combining several scans made using different scanning thresholds, grayscale
In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a grayscale image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample representing only an ''amount'' of light; that is, it carries only intensity information. Graysca ...
information could also be acquired. They used the computer to extract line drawings
Line most often refers to:
* Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity
* Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system
Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to:
Arts ...
, count objects, recognize alphanumeric characters, and produce oscilloscope
An oscilloscope (informally a scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying electrical voltages as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time. The main purposes are to display repetiti ...
displays. He also proposed the Kirsch operator
The Kirsch operator or Kirsch compass kernel is a non-linear
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engi ...
for edge detection in images.[
Later in life, Kirsch became the director of research of the Sturvil Corporation and an advisory editor for 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 operation ...
(IEEE). He was the advisory editor of the journal ''Languages of Design''.
Accomplishments
In 2003 Kirsch's scanned picture of his son was named by ''Life'' magazine one of the "100 Photographs That Changed the World" due to its importance in the development of digital photography
Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is sto ...
. The original image is in the Portland Art Museum
The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum beca ...
.[ Although Kirsch did not work for ]NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
, his invention led to technology crucial to space exploration
Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by robotic spacec ...
, including the Apollo Moon landing. Medical advancements such as Sir Godfrey Hounsfield
Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield (28 August 1919 – 12 August 2004) was an English electrical engineer who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Allan MacLeod Cormack for his part in developing the diagnostic technique of X ...
’s CAT scan can also be attributed to Kirsch's research.
See also
* Digitization
DigitizationTech Target. (2011, April). Definition: digitization. ''WhatIs.com''. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digitization is the process of converting information into a Digital data, digital (i ...
References
Further reading
* .
External links
Kirsch talking about the SEAC computer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirsch, Russell
1929 births
2020 deaths
American computer scientists
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni
The Bronx High School of Science alumni
Scientists from New York (state)
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
Jewish American scientists
21st-century American Jews