
What Is a Strain Gauge? - maisies
https://www.variohm.com/news-media/technical-blog-archive/what-is-a-strain-gauge-
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tzs
The bonded wire strain gauge was invented in 1937 by Edward Simmons at Caltech
and independently by Arthur Rage at MIT a little later. Simmons fought Caltech
over the patent rights and won in 1949.

This made Simmons a lot of money.

Much later, he become rather odd. When I was a student at Caltech in the late
'70s and early '80s he was frequently around campus sitting in on lectures or
using the library. Most of us students and even most of the faculty and staff
had no idea who he was but since security wasn't chasing him off or
circulating warnings to avoid him no one minded.

By odd I mean his typical attire was purple or pink tights, a tutu, slippers,
sometimes a garish multicolored sweater, and a beret or sometimes a turban.
People called him "Renaissance Ralph".

Here's a couple photos of him [1] [2].

[1] [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79907149/edward-e-
simmon...](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79907149/edward-e-simmons)

[2] [http://archives-
dc.library.caltech.edu/islandora/object/ct1%...](http://archives-
dc.library.caltech.edu/islandora/object/ct1%3A1849)

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ch_123
Amongst other applications, Strain Gauges can be found in the Trackpoints
commonly associated with IBM/Lenovo's Thinkpad laptops:

[https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/91/5c/4b/e86a79d...](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/91/5c/4b/e86a79d7f7d198/US6509890.pdf)

