Samuel Ruben died 30 years ago today.  2 days beyond his 88^th birthday.

Why should you care?  Because Samuel Ruben invented the dry cell battery, that ubiquitous device that lets us have power without being tethered to an electric utility.

Ruben attended Brooklyn Poly (unfortunately, their tremendous engineering programs have now subsumed by NYU) a few times, without ever completing his degree.  But, he did receive an honorary degree in Chemical Engineering from Brooklyn Poly.   He still managed to teach at Harvard, among other institutions.

Ruben was an inveterate “tinkerer“.  And, if you were a tinkerer back before the 1960’s, it invariably meant you played with crystal radios.  These were very simple radio receivers, using only the power of the received radio signal to produce sounds- no external power was needed.  It was called a crystal radio, because galena, a crystalline mineral, was the critical component in the device.  Nowadays, we would call that crystal detector a diode.

At the age of 14, he entered a magazine contest; his entry was an optical signaling device (a wooden tripod, which supported a flashlight and a switch connected to a telegraph key).  And, Hugo Gernsback (owner of the Electro Importing Company, as well as the magazine publisher) chose his entry as the winner.

Next, Ruben invented the trickle charger.  You know- that thing that we use to recharge our car batteries when they won’t crank up in the morning.  (Back then, they were used to get airplane engines cranking, too.)

By the time he was 26 (in 1926), he developed a “battery eliminator”.  This let radios operate on household current, being plugged into the wall socket.  This is also about the time battery operated radios developed the sobriquet “farm radios”.  Because on the farm- places with only 1 in 9 farms were connected to the “grid”- they needed batteries to obtain the news – or the music- playing on the airwaves.

Ruben’s development of the battery helped the Allies win the war (WWII). Prior to his invention, it would be typical for radios to be DOA (dead on arrival) when they reached the African or Pacific theaters.  The heat and humidity that obtained during the lengthy time it took to transport them to the “front lines” let the natural chemical reactions within the batteries (then composed of zinc-carbon)  to dissipate all their charge.

Ruben’s improvement was to use mercuric oxide (hence the term “mercury cell battery”).  These batteries were far more resilient to heat and humidity.  Which meant troops could have flashlights, batteries, and mobile (ones that used wires to connect to “headquarter”; they were NOT wireless back then) telephones that actually worked.

Don’t even think that Ruben would be one of those war profiteers.  Not he!  When the royalties on his invention were approaching $ 2 million a year (about $ 30 million in current 2018 dollars), he renegotiated the contracts and lowered his royalties to $ 150K.  He wanted to contribute to the war effort!

Ruben didn’t stop his inventions there, at the age of 45.  He invented the alkaline manganese battery.  These were the things folks like me used to power our teeny tiny radios and pig out on rock and roll music as kids.  (OK. I also broke open the batteries to harvest the manganese dioxide; it was the catalyst to decompose hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen gas.  Cool fun!)

Ruben’s battery inventions even found their way to the Soviet Union.  (Since the Soviet Union and the USA were on the same  [at least, almost the same] side during World War II, the US shared Ruben’s technology.)  And, his batteries were what made Sputnik successful in becoming the first orbiting satellite.  (Don’t worry- Ruben’s batteries were used during the Apollo XIII failure when there was no power aboard that spacecraft, they relied on his “light pens”.)

Ruben also developed the AAA sized battery. Who cares, you ask? Well, for starters, your TV remote control won’t work without them.  These teeny batteries carried the same current as their larger brethren.

Ruben also convinced Kodak to specify the use of Mallory (the predecessor company to DuraCell, which was its new name when Gillette took over the firm) AAA batteries to power our Brownie cameras.  (These were all the rage in the late 1950s and early 1960s.) Why would Kodak do that?  Because Mallory gave them free batteries to stock each sale of the Brownie camera.

By the time his inventing career was over, he had some 300 patents!  This included vacuum tubes- those tremendous devices that gave our radios and stereos their quality sound.   By the way, his didn’t need a long time to “warm up”- they worked within 7 seconds, as opposed to 30 seconds for his competitors’.

Why do I care about Samuel Ruben?  Because he took a flyer on me.  Noting that I, too, won a widely sought sci-tech prize at the age of 14, and was hard at work on several others. And, my SAT and achievement test scores; my ability to work 25 to 30 hours a week at a part-time job and still excel at school, would mean that I would excel during my college career. So, he decided I could be the very first Samuel Ruben Scholar of Chemical Engineering.  At the school where he attempted to get his own degree several times.  (Brooklyn Poly, of course!)

We had the opportunity to have routine discussions, honing my business acumen. I, too, created my devices for use at other firms. Firms that already had the technological infrastructure to insure the widespread use of my inventions. In my case, it wasn’t until one of my clients decided to terminate their venture that I actually took the reins of my own manufacturing, marketing, logistics venture. Creating an international presence in the medical arena and one of the largest private trucking firms to supply those medical products, to boot.

Here’s to you, Mr. Samuel Ruben. I learned from you the need to pay it forward, ever since you proffered me that first baton.

A few of the books written by Samuel Ruben:
The Evolution of the Electric Battery in Response to Industrial Needs. Dorrance Publishers, 78 pages. 1978. 080592455
Founders of Electrochemistry. Dorrance Publishers, 107 pages. 1975.  0805921079