Francis Robbins Upton
Francis Robbins Upton ( born July 26, 1852 in Peabody, Massachusetts, † March 10, 1921 in Orange, New York) was an American physicist and mathematician who, among other things was involved as an assistant to Thomas Alva Edison in the development of the U.S. electrical industry.
Biography
Upton grew up in Massachusetts. He studied at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, Princeton University, and in Berlin, where he among other things, worked with Hermann von Helmholtz. He was one of the first graduates of Princeton and received his Master of Science in 1877.
In 1878 he joined in Menlo Park, New Jersey in the laboratory of Thomas A. Edison. There mathematically treated problems in the development of the light bulb flicker, the watt-hour meter ( device used to capture electrical energy consumption ) and large dynamos. In October 1879, finally, the first light bulb was demonstrated with carbon filament, with the other optimizations of the competition against gas lamps was successfully added. He was a partner and general manager of the Edison Lamp Works, from 1881 Edison Lamp Co., which he co-founded in 1880. The company was founded in 1889 part of the Edison General Electric Co., which in turn in 1892 with the Thomson - Houston Co. to General Electric merged. As to whether Upton was paid or held shares in the successor companies, there is no source.
Upton published inventions and discoveries, and wrote, among other things for Scribner's Monthly, and Scientific American.
1958 were established at Princeton University, a graduate of the Francis Upton Graduate Fellowships.
Links / sources
- The Edison Papers: Edison 's Companies, accessed on 10 December 2008
- Enceplopaedia Britannica
- Princeton University
- Online Biography
- Libserve
- Physicist (19th Century )
- Mathematicians (19th Century )
- Inventor
- Americans
- Born in 1852
- Died in 1921
- Man