- When someone asked Edgerton to take a picture of a bullet passing through a playing card, Edgerton simply asked, “What part of the bullet? Front? Middle?”
- When British scientists said strobe flashes could not possibly be used for war reconnaissance photos, Harold Edgerton photographed Stonehenge on a moonless night. From 10,000 feet.
- Back when biologists argued about how hummingbirds could possibly fly, Harold Edgerton not only showed how they flew, he showed that their wings beat 70 times per second.
- When Kodak told him there was no practical use for strobes in photography, Harold Edgerton photographed a boxing match at night and wired the photos to every newspaper in the country.
- When Jaques Cousteau wanted a flash to take pictures in deep, dark water, Harold Edgerton made the flash. And then invented side-scan sonar so Cousteau could find things underwater to take pictures of.
- When the scientists at Los Alamos finished designing the first atomic bomb, they realized they had no electrical capacitors powerful enough to trigger it. Harold Edgerton loaned them some. Then he designed a camera that could take pictures of the explosion before it had spread 100 yards wide, so they could see how it worked.
from And Edgerton Said, “Let There Be Light.”, Roger Cicala
