Meredith Gourdine facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Meredith Gourdine
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Meredith Gourdine
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| Born | September 26, 1929 |
| Died | November 20, 1998 (aged 69) |
| Alma mater | Brooklyn Technical High School B.S. Cornell University Ph.D. Caltech |
| Known for | Electrogasdynamics |
| Olympic medal record | ||
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| Men’s Athletics | ||
Representing  United States |
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| Silver | 1952 Helsinki | Long jump |
Meredith Charles "Flash" Gourdine (September 26, 1929 - November 20, 1998) was an American athlete, engineer and physicist with 70 patents that deal with thermal management and the conversion of gas to electricity.
Early life
Meredith Gourdine was born September 26, 1929, in Newark, New Jersey, and was raised in Brooklyn. His father was a painter and a janitor. Gourdine attended Brooklyn Tech High School. After classes, he worked eight hours a day on painting jobs with his father.
His father always encouraged him to study and get an education. "My father said, 'If you don't want to be a laborer all your life, stay in school.' It took," Gourdine recalled.
Education
Gourdine graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. He did not run until his senior year in high school and never won a race there. He was a good swimmer, though. That won him a scholarship offer from the University of Michigan. Instead, he went to Cornell and paid his tuition fees for the first years.
At Cornell University, his sports career flourished. He competed in the sprints and low hurdles and the long jump.
He won five titles in the Heptagonal Games and four titles in the championships of the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America. In 1952, he helped Cornell finish second to Southern California in the National Collegiate Athletic Association championships.
In 1952, after he had earned a bachelor's degree in engineering, Gourdine became an officer in the United States Navy. In 1960, on a Guggenheim fellowship, he earned a doctorate in engineering science from the California Institute of Technology.
He earned a BS in Engineering Physics from Cornell University in 1953, where he was selected for membership in the Quill and Dagger society.
In 1960 he earned a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from the California Institute of Technology while working as a Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1958-60.
Career
Scientific career
In 1964, Gourdine borrowed $200,000 from friends and founded a research and development firm, Gourdine Systems, in Livingston, New Jersey. In 1973 he founded Energy Innovations, a company that produced direct-energy conversion devices in Houston, Texas. The companies developed engineering techniques to aid removing smoke from buildings and disperse fog from airport runways, and converting low-grade coal into inexpensive, transportable and high-voltage electrical energy.
Gourdine was inducted to the Dayton, Ohio, Engineering and Science Hall of Fame in 1994. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1991 and also served as a Trustee of Cornell University. He was an expert in Electrogasdynamics, the generation of electrical energy based on the conversion of the kinetic energy contained in a high-pressure, ionized, moving combustion gas (e.g., Ion wind). He specialized in devising applications, including electric precipator systems. He also invented the Focus Flow Heat Sink, used to cool computer chips.
Gourdine was granted a total of 27 U.S. patents, issued between 1971-1996.
Athletic career
At the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, while he was still an undergraduate student at Cornell, he won a silver medal for the long jump, one and a half inch short of Jerome Biffle's gold medal jump.
"I would have rather lost by a foot," he said years later. "I still have nightmares about it."
Personal life
He was married twice. He had three daughters from his first marriage - Teri Bruce, Traci and Tony.
He married for the second time, to Carolina Baling. They had a son together.
Death
He died on November 20, 1998 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Houston, aged 69. In his later years, Meredith suffered from diabetes and lost his vision and one leg. He died from complications from multiple strokes.
See also
In Spanish: Meredith Gourdine para niños
