Profiles & Perspectives
- PDF / 12,153,515 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 576 x 777.6 pts Page_size
- 42 Downloads / 159 Views
Order in Disorder: Stanford Ovshinsky Talks of His Materials, Methods, and Machines You may not see Stanford Ovshinsky listed under inventors in the Yellow Pages of Troy, Michigan's telephone directory. But you will find his name at various places in the White Pages listed as chair or president or CEO of companies he founded. But truly, he is an inventor—an inventor of materials. His materials are something special: disordered or amorphous structures, "freed from the tyranny of crystalline periodicity" as he said. He has been developing these materials for over three decadesfromwhat has now become a commonplace material—amorphous silicon—to more exotic complex metal hydrides for batteries. He also discovered uses for them: photovoltaics from silicon and powered vehicles from metal hydrides. As though these accomplishments were not enough, he tries to convince the skeptics by building production facilities to turn these materials into products. Stan Ovshinsky with his wife Iris and his scientists form a compact team of inventors. Stan said it is difficult to separate their contributions. But Iris is more forthcoming. "Stan always thinks of the new ideas and new materials," she said. And the ideas keep flowing. Despite their many decades of being in this business, retirement, it looks, is not on their agenda. We were not sure from where to start our interview. Stan helped us by whisking us away into his research and development and manufacturing facilities. The machines he designed, the products he made, and the colleagues he works with, all spoke for him in their own ways. After the tour, when we still insisted on talking with him, he was surprised. "Wasn't that enough?" he questioned. But we wanted to learn more about what made him enter the field of materials, the challenges he faced, and the friends he made en route. On a sunny and an incredibly beautiful day, Stan, with Iris sitting nearby, spoke to us in the course of an excellent mid-eastern lunch. Stan, tell us of your earlier years and how you entered the materials field.
I am from Akron, a quintessential industrial town in Ohio. I worked in the farmlands of Ohio and in its factories and was educated in the public libraries of Ohio. I was always interested in all things science then. Nature did not create scientific disciplines, nor divide science, but humankind did. I feel if you can prove your ideas using scientific methods, you can pursue any discipline. I first came to Detroit as an inventor, machine builder, and director of research with a great interest in neurophysiology.
MRS BULLETIN/NOVEMBER 1998
Neurophysiology?
Yes, neurophysiology. I was then interested in machine automation and it was then part of "cybernetics"—a term that has long been forgotten. I thought intelligence was not the usual IQ stuff but an ability to learn, adapt, and change. I wanted to put this logic into machines. To learn more about how human beings think, I started attending meetings in neurophysiology. In one such meeting I heard a speaker making an astounding statement t
Data Loading...
