engineering

Jan A. Rajchman

Jan A. Rajchman is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jan A. Rajchman rather than just read about it. In short: Jan Aleksander Rajchman (10 August 1911 – 1 April 1989) was a Polish-American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. Biography Jan Aleksander was son of Ludwik Rajchman and Maria Bojańczyk.

Key takeaways

Jan A. Rajchman belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jan A. Rajchman to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jan A. Rajchman from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jan Aleksander Rajchman (10 August 1911 – 1 April 1989) was a Polish-American electrical engineer and computer pioneer.

Biography Jan Aleksander was son of Ludwik Rajchman and Maria Bojańczyk. His father was a Polish bacteriologist and the founder of UNICEF. He was born in London, where his parents temporarily lived, and where his father held various positions at the Royal Institute of Public Health and King's College. He received the Diploma of Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1935, and became a Doctor of Science in 1938. Rajchman emigrated to America in 1935. He joined RCA Laboratory directed by Vladimir K. Zworykin in January 1936. He was a prolific inventor with 107 US patents among others logic circuits for arithmetic. He conceived the first read-only memory, which was widely used in early computers. He conceived and developed the selectively addressable storage tube, the ill-fated Selectron tube, and the core memory. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also a member of Sigma Xi, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Physical Society, the New York Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Franklin Institute. He received the 1960 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award and the 1974 IEEE Edison Medal For a creative career in the development of electronic devices and for pioneering work in computer memory systems.

US patents U.S. patent 2,792,563 – Magnetic System, 1957

Sources IEEE History Site Smithsonian Oral History, Interview with Rajchman Memorial Tribute Scientist of the Day - Jan Rajchman - Linda Hall Library

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jan A. Rajchman

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jan A. Rajchman claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jan A. Rajchman before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jan A. Rajchman ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jan A. Rajchman

In research: Jan A. Rajchman appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jan A. Rajchman in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jan A. Rajchman is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1911 births, 1989 deaths, 20th-century American engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jan A. Rajchman outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jan A. Rajchman in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jan A. Rajchman means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jan A. Rajchman out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jan A. Rajchman in simple terms?

Jan Aleksander Rajchman (10 August 1911 – 1 April 1989) was a Polish-American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. Biography Jan Aleksander was son of Ludwik Rajchman and Maria Bojańczyk.

Why does Jan A. Rajchman matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jan A. Rajchman?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jan A. Rajchman.