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Meredith Gourdine
 
Meredith C Gourdine
Meredith Gourdine
Meredith Gourdine on the Web
Patents Issued to Meredith Gourdine : Physicist, Engineer
A complete list of patents issued to Meredith Gourdine.
Meredith Gourdine
Inventor of electrogasdynamics systems.
Meredith Gourdine
Biography of Meredith C Gourdine.
Related Innovations
Black Inventors
By Mary Bellis

Dr. Meredith Gourdine was born in Newark New Jersey on September 26, 1929, and grew up in the streets of Harlem and Brooklyn. Meredith Gourdine attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and received a Ph.D. in Engineering Science from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Meredith Gourdine pioneered the research of electrogasdynamics. Electrogasdynamics is a way to disperse fog and smoke. By applying strong electrical forces to either you can control those elements. He was responsible for the engineering technique termed Incineraid for aiding in the removal of smoke from buildings. His work on gas dispersion developed techniques for dispersing fog from airport runways. Meredith Gourdine also created a generator that allowed for the cheaper transmission of electricity. He held more than 40 patents for various inventions.

Meredith Gourdine built a multi-million dollar corporation that is based on his ideas in the field of electrogasdynamics (EGD). Using the principles of EGD, Meredith Gourdine successfully converted natural gas to electricity for everyday use. Applications of EGD include refrigeration, desalination of sea water, and reducing the pollutants in smoke.

Meredith Gourdine served on the technical staff of the Ramo-Woolridge Corporation from 1957-58. He then became a Senior Research Scientist at the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1958-60. He became a Lab Director of the Plasmodyne Corporation from 1960-62 and Chief Scientist of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation from 1962 to 1964. In 1964, he served on the President's Panel on Energy.

Meredith Gourdine established a research laboratory, Gourdine Laboratories, in Livingston, New Jersey, with a staff of over 150.

As an interesting side note, Meredith Gourdine won the silver medal in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki for the long jump. Meredith Gourdine is also blind. He died in Houston, Texas on November 20, 1998. Meredith Gourdine was serving as the president of Energy Innovation, Inc. of Houston, Texas at the time of his death.

Continue with >>> Patents Issued to Meredith Gourdine

photo provided by Department of Energy 

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