Van de Graaff, << VAN duh `graf,` >> Robert Jemison (1901-1967), an American physicist, invented the electrostatic generator named after him. This device builds up a high-voltage electric charge whose field can accelerate charged particles. Van de Graaff generators are used to sterilize food and study atomic nuclei.
Van de Graaff was born on Dec. 20, 1901, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1922 and earned a doctor’s degree from Oxford University in 1928. Van de Graaff built his first high-energy generator in 1931, while a researcher at Princeton University. That same year, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he continued to develop the generator. In 1946, he helped found the High Voltage Engineering Corporation for producing advanced generator models. He died on Jan. 16, 1967.
