This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Andrew Davidson (talk | contribs) at 15:26, 11 December 2019 (→Career: restore Revelations material). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 15:26, 11 December 2019 by Andrew Davidson (talk | contribs) (→Career: restore Revelations material)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) American inventor| George J. Laurer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | George Joseph Laurer (1925-09-23)September 23, 1925 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | December 5, 2019(2019-12-05) (aged 94) Wendell, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Notable work | Universal Product Code |
George Joseph Laurer (September 23, 1925 – December 5, 2019) was an IBM engineer at Research Triangle Park. He published 20 bulletins, held 25 patents and developed the Universal Product Code (UPC) in the early 1970s. He devised the coding and pattern used for the UPC, based on Joe Woodland's more general idea for barcodes.
Early life
George Laurer was born on September 23, 1925, in New York City. His family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, so his father, an electrical engineer, could work for the United States Navy. Laurer recovered from polio which he contracted as a teenager, nonetheless, while in 11th grade, he was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. After being discharged from the military, he attended technical school where he studied radio and television repair. Upon completion of his first year at the technical school, his instructor convinced him that he should not continue that course of study, but that he should go to college. Laurer graduated from the School of Engineering at University of Maryland in 1951.
Career
Laurer was 36-year employee of IBM until his retirement in June 1987. He joined IBM in 1951 as a junior engineer. By 1969, he had been promoted to senior engineer / scientist and moved to the company's offices in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.
Laurer was assigned the task of developing barcodes for use in grocery stores. Initially, IBM envisioned a circular bullseye pattern as proposed by N. Joseph Woodland in 1940s. Laurer realized that the pattern was ineffective because of smearing during printing. Instead, he designed a vertical pattern of stripes which he proposed to his superior in 1971 or 1972.
The Universal Product Code has bit patterns at the beginning, middle and end of the barcode called "guard bars" and these have been interpreted as the digits 666. When he first developed the code, Laurer noticed that the digit 6 appeared several times and that this might be interpreted as the number of the Beast, as his daughter was studying the Book of Revelation. In 1973, a consortium of grocery store companies adopted his Universal Product Code (UPC). When the codes started to appear in stores, there were protests and an urban legend developed. Laurer addressed this on his website:
- Answer – Yes, they do RESEMBLE the code for a six. An even parity 6 is:
- 1 module wide black bar 1 module wide white space 1 module wide black bar 4 module wide white space.
- There is nothing sinister about this nor does it have anything to do with the Bible's "mark of the beast" (The New Testament, The Revelation, Chapter 13, paragraph 18). It is simply a coincidence like the fact that my first, middle, and last name all have 6 letters. There is no connection with an international money code either.
Legacy
Laurer was the holder of 25 patents and authored 20 published Technical Disclosure Bulletins. In 1976, he was given the Raleigh Inventor of the Year Award. In 1980, he received the Corporate Technical Achievement award from IBM.
As of 2019, UPC barcodes were being scanned more than 6 billion times each day, according to GS1.
Personal life
Laurer lived in Wendell, North Carolina until his death in December 2019. His wife, Marilyn Slocum Laurer, died in 2013. They had four children.
Published journal articles
- Savir, David; Laurer, George J. (1975). "The characteristics and decodability of the Universal Product Code symbol". IBM Systems Journal. 14 (1): 16–34. doi:10.1147/sj.141.0016.
References
- ^ Smith, Harrison (December 10, 2019). "George Laurer, an inventor of the modern bar code, dies at 94". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
- Parks, Harold; Musser, Gary; Trimpe, Lynn; Maurer, Vikki; Maurer, Roger (2006). A Mathematical View of Our World. Cengage Learning. ISBN 0495010618. Retrieved 11 May 2018.
- ^ "George J. Laurer". UPC: The Transformation of Retail. IBM. January 25, 2011. Retrieved 2019-12-11.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "George Laurer, inventor of ubiquitous UPC, dies at 94". AP News. December 9, 2019. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
- ^ "George J. Laurer". A. James Clark School of Engineering. University of Maryland. Retrieved 2019-12-11.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Kennedy, Pagan (2013-01-04). "Who Made That Universal Product Code?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-12-11.
- ^ Cade Metz (28 December 2012), "Why the Bar Code Will Always Be the Mark of the Beast", Wired
- QUESTIONS about the U.P.C. and the New Testament Archived 2016-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
- "UPC inventor, George Laurer, dies at 94 in his North Carolina home". WTVD. December 9, 2019.
External links
- George J. Laurer's personal web site at the Wayback Machine (archived 2019-02-09)
- Innovation Hall of Fame Inductees, Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland in 1991.
- Alumni UMD Hall Of Fame Members in 2000