Norman Joseph Woodland
Norman Joseph Woodland ( born September 6, 1921 in Atlantic City, New Jersey; † December 9, 2012 in Edgewater, New Jersey ) is known as the co-inventor of the bar code, for which he obtained a patent on October 7, 1952.
Life
Joseph Woodland learned Morse code as scouts, who later became the basis for his invention of the bar code. He graduated from Atlantic City High School in 1947 and earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Drexel University. As a student, he further developed a system were sonicated with the elevators from the inside. While the music was typically played on LPs or tapes, Woodlands based approach on a 15 -track system, stored on 35mm film. His father forbade him to develop this because he kept music in elevators for decadent.
During World War II he was a technical assistant in the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge. 1948/49, he was professor at Drexel University. 1948 heard his colleague Bernard Silver, like a supermarket managers interviewed the Dean, how can auto-detect at the checkout product information. The Dean had reservations, but Silver told Woodland them. Silver and Woodland developed a system that product information with fluorescent ink aufdruckte on goods and omit with ultraviolet light. However, it proved to be impractical for Masseneinseatz.
In the winter of 1948 Woodland took a share gain with, quit his faculty post and moved to his grandfather to Miami Beach in Florida. Later descriptions after he sat during the day on the beach, as it occurred to Morse code back to mind and he recorded with four fingers lines at various intervals in the sand. Looking back, told Woodland:
From this he derived the concept of the bar code, he and Silver in October 1949 patented.
In 1951 he started working for IBM. But here it was until the 1970s not possible to develop the technology, as for reading the bar codes extremely bright lamps would have been required. For $ 15,000 Woodland and Silver sold their technology to the electronics firm Philco. In the 1960s, variations of the bar codes have been developed. IBM joined only in 1971, when Woodland was transferred to North Carolina, where he had a key role in the development of the Universal Product Code.
Norman Joseph Woodland died on December 9, 2012 in his home in Edgewater, New Jersey at the age of 91 years and left a daughter.