MIT Museum

Freezing Time: Edgerton and the Beauty of the Machine Age offers a new look at the inventions that enabled the manipulation of time and light by MIT scientist and researcher Harold ”Doc” Edgerton. Focused on the study of electric generators, he was inspired to use a primitive technology called a stroboscope invented in the 1830s. Edgerton, first as a graduate student and then with his students (most notably Kenneth Germeshausen and Herbert Grier) would transform the stroboscope and the high-speed flash into vital tools for the analysis of high-speed movement.

The exhibition lets visitors time-travel back to the 1930s and reexamine the importance of art and science to the development of Edgerton’s tools as well as reflect on important themes of speed, standardization, precision, efficiency, and scientific management.

The historic photographs featured in Freezing Time are being reprinted from the original negatives by Gus Kayafas (MIT Class of 1969), one of Harold Edgerton’s students and long-time photographic printer, collaborator, and friend.

Learn more about this exhibition. presented in celebration of the MIT Museum’s yearlong focus on TIME here:https://hubs.la/Q04jrZxV0

Images by Anna Olivella