... that Ultrasonics – was born in the sea*
A continued series of “factoids” on the research and history of the technology.
The major event that initiated the chain of developments toward modern ultrasonics was the 1912 sinking of the Titanic after collision with an iceberg. Soon after, L. F. Richardson patented ultrasonic methods for obstacle avoidance. Although no practical implementation of these concepts occurred, they were the basis for later ultrasonic developments in World War I. Langevin (1917) headed work on submarine detection and conceived the quartz transducer and sandwich construction, keystone inventions for the modern science of ultrasonics.
* Abstracted from “A History of Ultrasonics,” K. Graff,, Physical Acoustics, V 14, Academic Press, 1981 and “Historical Highlights in Ultrasonics – 2”, Invited paper, IEEE, 2010.