Einstein invents automatic camera
By Science News
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December 5, 1936 | Vol. 30 | No. 817
Einstein invents automatic camera with “electric eye”
Dr. Albert Einstein, the famed proponent of relativity and acknowledged leader of the science of mathematical physics, stands revealed on the records of the U.S. Patent Office as the inventor of a camera that snaps photographs with the proper aperture and exposure automatically determined.
He has applied the photoelectric cells or “electric eye” to cameras. Experts reading the patent specifications foresee the possibility that the invention will be practically and commercially important in the next few years.
The patent is No. 2,058,562 and the application was filed on Dec. 11, 1935, by Dr. Einstein jointly with Dr. Gustav Bucky of New York City.
This is the way the Bucky- Einstein camera works: Light from the scene or object being photographed comes into an auxiliary lens and falls on the photoelectric cell. There is a screen of varying transparency mounted in the main camera lens system that is moved in accord with the amount of light that the electric eye sees, letting more light fall on the photographic plate when necessary.
So far as can be judged, abstruse mathematical theory was not needed in designing the patented camera but Einstein’s genius probably contributed largely to making it operate correctly.