Audio from the Past
“Avro Lancaster Crew Radio Chatter”
3 separate bombing raids
https://youtu.be/MF5_hvE4WEA
(9:44)

Edgerton was also a founding partner of defense contractor “EG&G,” (Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc.) Notable products include the Krytron, the Rapatronic Camera, and various image-intensifier’s using CCD technology.

Doc wrote in his notebook:

“The A-20 (No 449) went on its first mission on Monday night June 5 arriving at the target on June 6 around 130 am. The target was two road intersections south of Caen. Due to clouds the pictures were taken at 800 ft – 2000 ft. The photos were very good but there was no overlap. Some flack [sic] from ground machine guns was encountered at a town named Coustances. Villedieu-les-Poêles was photographed. I stayed up until 5 am to see the negatives out of the dryer.”

https://invention.si.edu/invention-stories/seeing-dark-aerial-reconnaissance-wwii

Apparently, Doc was onboard that bomber, operating his equipment…

Let us consider the 20 year-old pilot and like-aged observer flying alone and unarmed over heavily defended territory at 5000 feet. Pucker-factor is high, this mission. Speed is Life; and Mosquito is salvation.

Retrospective on Professor Edgerton (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990).

“1 trillion frames pe-second; Imaging Photons”
MIT (2011)
https://youtu.be/EtsXgODHMWk
2:46

“We use a regular pulse light-source and a camera that is actually 500 different sensors, triggered at 1 trillionth of a second delay.”
(Particle or Wave? discuss…..)
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The film short on Edgerton stops in 1940, but he was vital to WW2. He developed a strobe system carried on modified aircraft that produced sharp aerial surveillance pictures from 1 mile in height, at night. He was also instrumental in developing techniques to examine the implosion wave required for the a-bomb and photographing the Trinity test.

3:26 – “…clear as a California morning. Well, some California mornings.” Sarcasm richly sprinkled in. But then MIT and Cal Tech always have been competitive, and MIT’s 2nd motto is “Always show them up”!

Edgerton started his strobe work in the early 1930s. I used a strobe in the early 1970s to improve my tennis serve by speeding up my swing speed and seeing it improved in a photo.

Milk $0.13/qt = $3.01 in 2026. Unless you live in an offshore State, you almost certainly pay much less. But, that was delivered.

Why so much milk?

Narration is priceless.

These films demonstrate the necessity for Human interaction with the machine. As a generation of drivers have found, touchscreen-everything is movie-cool: not so great on the daily. Turns out ot be about as practical as carrying swords on your back. A graduated thumbwheel for the strobe gives immediate tactile feedback to what the eye is seeing, rather than wait for some electronic intermediary to register the action (or not. ‘Sorry, Dave . . .’).

I was lucky enough to take a course at Strobe Lab during my time at MIT. Although officially retired, Doc was at the lab almost every day. He always had time for advice or a story. An incredible scientist and teacher.