Dr. Herbert Friedman, 84, Chief Scientist Emeritus of NRL's E.O.
Hulburt Center for Space Research at the Naval Research Laboratory
(NRL), died on Saturday, September 9 at his home in Arlington,
Virginia, following a battle with cancer. Dr. Friedman worked
at NRL for 60 years.
Dr. Friedman began his distinguished
career at NRL in 1940 as a research physicist in the Metallurgy
Division. His early work involved x-ray spectroscopy, and the
development and application of radiation detectors. Dr. Friedman
designed and adapted x-ray spectrometers for use in the manufacture
of quartz crystals. This work resulted in a tremendous savings
in the fabrication of quartz crystal oscillators, which were
indispensable to Fleet operations during World War II. Dr. Friedman
also collaborated in the development of an atmospheric radioactivity
surveillance system used to detect debris from the first Russian
atomic bomb test.
Dr. Friedman was widely recognized
for developing the science of rocket astronomy, having conducted
his first rocket experiment using a captured German V-2 rocket
in 1949. Data were obtained from Dr. Friedman's experiments that
proved the direct relationships between solar x-ray variability
and the strength of the Earth's ionosphere. During the International
Geophysical Year (IGY) in the late 1950s, Dr. Friedman led two
major experiments involving rocket launchings from naval vessels.
The first showed that solar flares emit hard x-rays that produce
shortwave radio blackout; the second used a total solar eclipse
to isolate x-ray sources in coronal condensations. Experiments
conducted by Dr. Friedman produced the first x-ray photographs
of the sun. And, in another first, measurements of the ultraviolet
fluxes of early-type stars, obtained by Dr. Friedman using small
mirror telescopes, produced the first catalogue of bright ultraviolet
stars.
From the early 1960s, Dr. Friedman's
efforts were primarily devoted to mapping the sky for celestial
x-ray sources. By observing the lunar occultation of the Crab
Nebula in 1964, he obtained the first identification of a discrete
x-ray source with a known celestial object. He led the team that
discovered the first extragalactic x-ray sources; the elliptical
galaxy M87 and the distant quasar 3C273. In 1968, he obtained
the first evidence of x-ray pulsations from the neutron star
in the Crab Nebula.
Dr. Friedman was a principal
investigator for the NRL experiment on NASA's High Energy Astronomy
Observatory mission of the 1970s that produced an all-sky catalog
of about a thousand sources and showed their classification into
a variety of objects. After his retirement from the Laboratory
in 1980, as Superintendent of NRL's Space Science Division, Dr.
Friedman served as Chief Scientist Emeritus.
Through the years, Dr. Friedman
devoted many hours of service to national and international scientific
organizations. He served on over 60 scientific advisory committees.
In 1960, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
and served on or chaired many NAS, National Research Council
and Space Science Studies Board panels. He was a member of the
President's Science Advisory Committee in 1971-72, and served
on the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission
from 1969-1974. Dr. Friedman was Vice President of the Committee
on Space Research from 1971-1975.
Dr. Friedman was a member of
the NAS, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences and an honorary fellow of the American Institute
of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In 1996, on the occasion of
his 80th birthday, NRL awarded Dr. Friedman its Lifetime Achievement
Award, the highest local honor that an NRL Commanding Officer
can confer on a civilian employee.
Dr. Friedman also received many
other awards and recognitions during his career. Among those
were included; the 1996 Cosmos Club Award, the President's Distinguished
Federal Civilian Service Award; the National Medal of Science;
the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society; the Bowie
Medal of the American Geophysical Union; the Wolf Prize in Physics
from the Wolf Foundation in Israel; and the 1992 Massey Award
from the Royal Society of London, in association with the International
Council of Scientific Unions' Committee on Space Research.
Dr. Friedman, who earned his
Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, held 50 patents, authored
or co-authored over 300 scientific publications and wrote three
books, The Amazing Universe, Sun and Earth, and
The Astronomer's Universe.
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