Alan Hazeltine

Alan Hazeltine (born Aug. 7, 1886, Morristown, N.J., U.S.—died May 24, 1964, Maplewood, N.J.) was an American electrical engineer and physicist who invented the neutrodyne circuit, which made radio commercially possible.

Hazeltine attended Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N.J., and, after working a year (1906–07) in the laboratory of the General Electric Company in Schenectady, N.Y., he returned to Stevens to begin a long career in teaching. He became a full professor and head of the department of electrical engineering in 1917.

Experimental work in radio telegraphy and telephony, including a period as consultant to the U.S. Navy during World War I, led Hazeltine to invent the neutrodyne circuit, which neutralized the noise that plagued all radio receivers of the time. In 1924 the Hazeltine Corporation was formed, to which he sold the neutrodyne patent for stock and cash; by 1927 it was estimated that 10 million radio receivers employing the new device were in operation.

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For the next several years Hazeltine advised the government on regulation of radio broadcasting and continued his development work in radio for the Hazeltine Corporation; he returned to Stevens in 1933 as professor of physical mathematics. In World War II he was again in government service, as a member of the National Defense Research Committee.