How to Make Applesauce at M.I.T. .30-caliber Bullet, Dr. Harold Eugene Edgerton

Episode 126 Oct-2007, Emily Ryan I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. Photography has always relied heavily upon science and experimentation. In the 1930s, M.I.T. electrical engineering professor Harold Eugene Edgerton began his own studies in photography by using a stroboscope, a light that flashes at a regular tempo. Edgerton used the stroboscope to achieve exposure times as brief as 1/100,000,000th of a second. His 1964 photograph in the Spencer, How to Make Applesauce at M.I.T. .30-caliber Bullet, records the instant just after a bullet has passed through an apple, with the blast of displaced fruit bursting outward and the bullet frozen in place. Edgerton also used the stroboscope to capture successive stages of motion, as in Man Throwing Baseball, Multi-Flash, showing a series of positions as the man releases the ball. Edgerton used photographs to answer scientific questions and never referred to himself as an artist. Nevertheless, he created some of the most iconic photographs of the twentieth century. The Spencer owns numerous photographs by Edgerton, which you can view by request in the Print Room any Friday from 10-12 and 1-4. With thanks to Emily Ryan for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.