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Edward G. Ramberg ’26

Edward G. Ramberg ’26, January 9, 1995, in Southampton, Pennsylvania. He was a research physicist with RCA Corporation for 30 years. After spending two years at Reed he transferred to Cornell, graduating in physics in 1928. He then spent two years in the graduate program at Cornell, working on X-ray spectra. He completed a PhD at Arnold Sommerfeld's Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Munich, in 1932. After two years as a research assistant at Cornell, he joined the research staff of RCA at their facility in Camden, New Jersey. In 1942 he transferred to RCA's facility in Princeton, where he remained until his retirement in 1972. Ramberg worked on the research team of V.K. Zworkin on the perfection of electronic television, image converters, and multiplier phototubes. He was later involved with the development of the electron microscope, color television, holographic recording, and medical electronics. His focus was primarily on the theoretical aspects of the research, with an emphasis on mathematical problems in electron optics. During World War II, as a pacifist, he served for three years in Civilian Public Service in the disturbed patient ward of New Hampshire State Hospital, working with terminal patients. He was joint author of a number of books on electron optics, photoelectricity, television research, and the electron microscope. He also published a translation of Arnold Sommerfeld's Electrodynamics: Lectures on Theoretical Physics. He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the IEEE, and he received the David Sarnoff Award from that society in 1972. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Munich in 1949 and Fulbright lecturer in physics at the Technical University of Darmstadt in 1960–61. Edward married Sarah Sargent in 1936. In 1940, they cofounded, with 12 other families, Bryn Gweled Homesteads, a cooperative community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They were active in numerous political and civic affairs, including refugee resettlement issues and violence in the community. After his wife's death in 1975, he continued to live at Bryn Gweled and pursued volunteer work with Amnesty International and the Philadelphia Friends Peace Committee. He is survived by his nephew.

Appeared in Reed magazine: May 1995