Edwin Fitch Northrup (born February 23, 1866 – May 13, 1940) was a professor of physics known for his contributions to the study of substances at high temperatures and electronic conductivity. He was a professor at Princeton University from 1910 to 1919, an officer and adviser of Ajax Electro-Thermic Corp for twenty years and was affiliated with Leeds & Northrup for seven years. He held 104 patents on high-temperature measurement for new methods and instruments for the production and measurement of high temperatures.[1]
Northrup was born in Syracuse to Ansel Judd Northrup and Eliza Sophia Fitch Northrup. He graduated from Amherst College in 1892 and dis some post-graduate studies at Cornell University before earning a Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1895.[1] He then became assistant to Prof. Henry Augustus Rowland (died 1901) in the development of telegraph systems and became chief engineer at the newly-founded Rowland Printing Telegraph Company. In 1903 he co-founded Leeds & Northrup with Morris E. Leeds.
Northrup founded the Pyro-electric Instrument Company and served as its president from 1916 to 1920. From 1920 until his death in 1940 he served as vice president and technical adviser for Ajax Electro-Thermic Corp.[1]
Northrup invented the Ajax-Northrup high-frequency induction furnace, which in 1931 produced a temperature of 3,600 degrees.[1] That year he was awarded the Acheson Award by the Electrochemical Society.[2]
