View source for Emory Leon Chaffee

{{Short description|American physicist}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name              = Emory Leon Chaffee
|image             = E. Leon Chaffee.jpg
|caption           =
|birth_date        = {{birth date|1885|4|15|mf=y}}
|birth_place       = [[Somerville, Massachusetts]]
|death_date        = {{death date and age|1975|3|8|1885|4|15|mf=y}}
|death_place       = [[Waltham, Massachusetts]]
|nationality       = [[United States|American]]
|field             = [[Physics]]
|work_institutions = [[Harvard University]]
|alma_mater        = Harvard University
|doctoral_advisor  = [[G. W. Pierce]]
|doctoral_students = [[Howard H. Aiken]]
|known_for         = 
|awards            = [[IEEE Medal of Honor]] {{small|(1959)}}
}}
'''Emory Leon Chaffee''' (April 15, 1885 – March 8, 1975) was an American [[physicist]]. He was a professor at [[Harvard University]] from 1911 to 1953.

Chaffee was born in [[Somerville, Massachusetts]]. He studied [[electrical engineering]] and received his bachelor's degree from [[MIT]] in 1907. Afterward he made further studies at the [[Harvard University]] and took his master's degree and his [[Ph.D.]]

He was made an instructor in electrical engineering in 1911 and got a position as assistant professor of physics in 1917. In 1923, he became an [[associate professor]] and a professor in 1926. He was appointed [[Rumford Chair of Physics|Rumford Professor of Physics]] in 1940, and Gordon McKay Professor of [[applied physics]] in 1946. Chaffee became chairman of the Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Physics from 1949 till 1952.

Chaffee was awarded the [[IEEE Medal of Honor]] in 1959. He was best known for his work on thermionic [[vacuum tube]]s. In 1911, he invented the concept of the [[Chaffee Gap]] which was a way of producing continuous oscillations for radio transmissions, and in 1924, he started to work on controlling weather, using aircraft to break up clouds with electrically charged grains of sands.

Chaffee died in [[Waltham, Massachusetts|Waltham]], [[Massachusetts]].

==External links==
*[https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/5011 Oral history interview transcript with Emory Leon Chaffee on 31 January 1964, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives]
*{{MathGenealogy |id=25248 }}
*[http://www.todayinsci.com/3/3_08.htm Today in Science History]
*[http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/E._Leon_Chaffee IEEE]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050228101853/http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Cabin/1066/134famous_chaffees1840.html  Geocities.com]

{{IEEE Medal of Honor Laureates 1951-1975}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chaffee, Emory Leon}}
[[Category:1885 births]]
[[Category:1975 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American physicists]]
[[Category:20th-century American engineers]]
[[Category:Harvard University alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:IEEE Medal of Honor recipients]]
[[Category:MIT School of Engineering alumni]]