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}}Frederick Kantor is an American physicist. He is known for his early work on digital physics,[3] originally coined by Kantor as information mechanics which described "previously thought dissimilar phenomena, such as the fine structure constant (on the
scale of the very small) and cosmological red shift (on the scale of the very large)".[4]
Greg Bear cited Kantor's Information Mechanics as an inspiration for his 1990 novel Heads.[2] A Reddit editor named delverofsecrets created an Internet hoax involving an apparently chance meeting of Kantor and hundreds of Reddit followers at 6½ Avenue in Manhattan on July 12, 2012; the crowd was eventually dispersed by the New York Police Department.[3][4]Inventions
In addition to his efforts in digital physics Kantor holds numerous patents.
[5] The later patents deal with several classes of invetions: Rotary Inertial Thermodynamics; dynamic transport of waste fluids in rivers; and a fiber-optic device for persons with macular degeneration.
X-ray Telescope
However, the invention with potentially greatest impact at present is his earliest work on "Glancing-incidence radiation focusing device having a plurality of members with tension-polished reflecting surfaces." This patent, available at Google patents
[6] clearly shows the concentric glancing incidence design for X-ray collection. This is at the heart of the proposed NASA Lynx Observatory[7], which describes the same physical process as "grazing incidence.".
Kantor's work, part of his doctoral project at Columbia University, was supported in part by government funding. It was done prior to the Bayh-Dole act, and Columbia did not seek any patent rights. Subsequent to his patents, designs for a NASA project were developed later by Lockheed Corporation, asserting government use rights to apply the invention. Whether the Lynx observatory will be implemented remains an open question.
Bibliography
- {{cite book|first=Frederick W.|last=Kantor|title=Information Mechanics |publisher=Wiley-Interscience|year=1977|ISBN=9780471029687|OCLC=869307439}}
- {{citation|title=An informal partial overview of information mechanics|last=Kantor|first=F. W.|date=June 1982|journal= International Journal of Theoretical Physics|volume =21|issue=6-7|pp=525–535|doi=10.1007/BF02650182|bibcode=1982IJTP...21..525K}}
- {{citation|title=New X‐Ray Telescope is Sensitive, Light and Cheap|journal= Physics Today |volume=20|number=3 |p=88 |year=1967|doi=10.1063/1.3034240|bibcode=1967PhT....20c..88.}}
References
1. ^{{citation|title=Photos from Alumni Reunion Weekend and Dean's Day – Class of 1964|date=Summer 2014|publisher=Columbia University|work=Columbia College Today|url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/archive/summer14/webexclusive/view_photos_from_alumni_reunion_weekend_and_dean_s_day|accessdate=2017-12-17}}
2. ^{{cite book | last=Bear | first=G. | title=The Collected Stories of Greg Bear | publisher=Tom Doherty Associates | series=Tom Doherty Associates Books | year=2003 | isbn=978-0-7653-0161-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_J9AdpBgClAC&pg=PA93 | pp=93–94}}
3. ^{{citation|author=Matt Silverman|work=Mashable|title=The Chosen One: Meet the Man Who Sparked the Reddit Mystery|url=http://mashable.com/2012/07/14/reddit-mystery-code-video/}}
4. ^{{citation|title=What Happens When a Mob of Redditors Congregate to Solve—or Not Solve—a Reddit Mystery|author=Jessica Roy|date=July 12, 2012|newspaper=New York Observer|url=http://observer.com/2012/07/what-happens-when-a-mob-of-redditors-congregate-to-solve-or-not-solve-a-reddit-mystery/}}
5. ^ {{citation|title=Kantor Patents at Justia.com |url=https://patents.justia.com/inventor/frederick-w-kantor}}
6. ^ {{citation|title=Glancing-incidence radiation focusing device having a plurality of members with tension-polished reflecting surfaces |url=https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/76/ad/dd/ffa8364dbee782/US3543024.pdf}}
7. ^ {{citation|title=[NASA] Lynx X-ray Observatory |url=https://wwwastro.msfc.nasa.gov/lynx/docs/science/observatory.html}}
8. ^1 {{citation|journal=International Journal of Theoretical Physics|date=February 1989|volume=28|issue=2|pp=231–233|title=Maximum mass-particle velocities in Kantor's information mechanics|first=Daniel I. |last=Sverdlik|doi=10.1007/BF00669814|bibcode=1989IJTP...28..231S}}
9. ^1 {{citation|title=The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology|author=Ray Kurzweil|publisher=Penguin|year=2005|ISBN=9781101218884}}