Karl Swartzel
Designed the first op-amp at Bell Labs for a WWII gun director.
A Bell Labs engineer, Swartzel designed the first operational amplifier during WWII — a summing amplifier for the M9 gun director that aimed anti-aircraft fire. The op-amp was born as a weapon of computation.
The op-amp tools here descend from his wartime design, the ancestor of every analog computer and signal-conditioning circuit.
Portrait: a stylized blueprint-line rendering, not a photograph.
Contributions in the toolbox
- 1941
Summing amplifier for the M9 gun director — the op-amp's war job.
→ Op-Amp Gain