photo by: Skai Juice/facebook
The 2015 theme is: “A Century of Black Life, History, and Culture.” This week I will highlight Dr. Henry T. Sampson, the Black man who invented the Gamma-Electric Cell that brought us the cell phone that the world can’t seem to do without it.
Everyday I am amazed, as I am sure Mr. Sampson is, of the improvements of the cell phone and its many uses.
When I traveled to Hong Kong, China, it seems that everybody there had a cell phone; and all that you have to do is look around you and you will see the majority of people, adults and children of every kind with their own cell phone.
I love to tell my version of how Mr. Sampson came up with the idea of the cell phone. One day he was trying to get in touch with his wife, who had left home to go shopping, to no avail.
After several hours, he thought to himself, I can do better than this! And, he invented the Gamma-Electric Cell and the “cell phone” was born. From that point on he talked to his wife when ever he had a need to communicate with her.
Forth-four years ago, on July 6, 1971, Henry T. Sampson invented the “gamma-electric cell”, which pertains to Nuclear Reactor use.
According to Dr. Sampson, the Gamma Electric Cell, patented July 6, 1971, Patent No. 3,591,860 produces stable high-voltage output and current to detect radiation in the ground.
Born in Jackson, Mississippi, he received a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University in 1956. He went on to the University of California, Los Angeles where he graduated with a MS degree in engineering in 1961; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a MS in Nuclear Engineering in 1965, and a PHD in 1967.
Mobile Communications took a big step forward in 1983 with the invention of the Cellular System regulating the portable telephones, which use radio waves to transmit and receive audio signals.
Before this time, mobile telephone service in the United States, consisting mainly of car phones, was extremely limited because metropolitan areas had only one antenna for these purposes.
In addition, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) assigned only 12 to 24 frequencies to each area, which meant that only that many calls could occur at a time.
These limitations often meant a wait of up to 30 minutes for a dial tone and a five to ten year waiting list just to acquire the service. With the invention of cellular phone service in 1983, personal communications no longer depended on wires.
In the 1990s it would become possible to connect to the Internet from virtually anywhere in the world using a portable computer and a cellular modem with satellite service. Technologies that developed from different fields, such as personal communications, computation, and space exploration often worked together to serve the constantly evolving human needs of the information age.
Henry T. Sampson worked as a research Chemical Engineer at the US Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, California. 1956-61. Henry T. Sampson then moved on to the Aerospace Corp, El Segundo, CA.
His titles include: Project Engineer, 1967-81, director of Planning and Operations Directorate of Space Test Program, 1981-, and Co-inventor of gamma-electric cell.
He holds patents related to solid rocket motors and conversion of nuclear energy into electricity.
He also pioneered a study of internal ballistics of solid rocket motors using high-speed photography. He was also a producer of documentary films on early Black filmmakers and films, was a member of the board of directors of Los Angeles Southwest College Foundation, and a technical consultant to Historical Black Colleges and Universities Program.
Sampson’s Awards and Honors: Fellow of US Navy, 1962-1964. Atomic Energy Commission, 1964-1967. The Black Image Award from Aerospace Corp, 1982. Blacks in Engineering, Applied Science; and Education Award and Los Angeles Council of Black Professional Engineers, 1983.
