ABSTRACT
Institutions such as the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) were likewise totally involved in the war effort. This chapter describes the NBS’ Radio Proximity Fuzes, relating the context in which the publication appeared, its impact on science, technology, and the general public, and brief details about the lives and work of the author. The Bureau worked on a great diversity of war projects ranging from high technology to evaluating materials for blackout curtains and blackout masks. The problem assigned to the Bureau was to conceive and realize a fuze system for non-rotating, fin-stabilized munitions (ordnance) such that detonation could be obtained at a specified distance from the target. Both the Army and the Navy provided performance specifications for such fuzes and the program came to the Bureau for execution. As a result of the Bureau's great successes with radio earlier and with radiosondes more recently, the choice of the radio scheme led directly to a major technical strength of NBS.
