Henry Earl Singleton

Henry Singleton was raised on a small ranch near Haslet, Texas, a few miles northwest of Fort Worth. His higher education began in 1933 at North Texas Agricultural College, Arlington. After two years there, he received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, starting over as a Plebe (Freshman) in 1935. His roommate was fellow Plebe George A. Roberts, who would later join him in developing Teledyne. During his first two years at Annapolis, Singleton ranked first in mathematics out of a class of 820 students. A reoccurring medical problem made it necessary for him to leave the academy in 1938.

After the Academy, Singleton elected to study electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and graduated in 1940, receiving both bachelor's (Sc.B.) and master's (Sc.M.) degrees in this field. During his first year there, he was a member of a three-man team that won the Putnam Prize in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, administered annually by the Mathematical Association of America. Another member of the team was Richard P. Feynman, a future Nobel Prize Laureate. Singleton eventually returned to MIT for doctoral studies, earning the Sc.D. degree, also in electrical engineering, in 1950.

After graduating from MIT in 1940 and unable to meet the physical requirements for military service, Singleton took a Civil Service position as an electrical engineer at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, located at the Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. Singleton was involved in analyzing a process that was eventually called “degaussing,” which gives protection to cargo ships from German-laid magnetic naval mines by reducing the magnetic field surrounding a vessel's steel hull.

In 1942, Philip M. Morse, a professor at MIT, organized the Anti-Submarine Warfare Operations Research Group (ASWORG) on the staff of Admiral Ernest King, then Chief of Naval Operations. Having shown his mathematical skills in the degaussing developments, Singleton was invited to join the ASWORG. In doing so, he contributed to the founding of operations research in America.

As the Allies prepared for re-conquering Europe, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had a great demand for personnel with scientific capabilities. Singleton joined the OSS in 1944 and was sent to Europe. He remained there until the end of the war, and left the OSS when it was disbanded in the fall of 1945.

Singleton joined the ITT Corporation at their New York City headquarters in 1946. ITT was involved in securing its patent rights from wartime work in the US as well as in Germany. With his education and wartime experience, Singleton became a patent engineer and served ITT in this function for two years.

In the fall of 1948, Singleton returned to MIT to pursue a doctorate in electrical engineering. He obtained Jerome Wiesner as his mentor. At the Rad Lab during WWII, Wiesner had developed an important optimum linear filter and prediction technique. For his dissertation, Singleton generalized Wiesner's technique for the nonlinear situation, making a major contribution to the emerging field of information theory. He was awarded the Sc.D. degree in 1950.

While pursuing his doctorate, Singleton's efforts were sponsored under a U.S. Army Signal Corps contract at the MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics. His accomplishments there also included the design and fabrication of an early digital computer – a special-purpose machine that computed correlation functions.

After receiving his doctorate, Singleton accepted a position as a Research Associate with General Electric in Schenectady, New York. There he continued work in information theory and was introduced to advanced practices of industrial research and development. In 1951, Singleton was invited to join a new team headed by Charles B. “Tex” Thornton in the Aerospace Group at Hughes Aircraft. He accepted, and moved to Los Angeles. At Hughes, Singleton entered the emerging fields of digital and semiconductor electronics, applying these technologies in the development of the fire control system for the F-102 aircraft. In 1952, Singleton took his expertise to North American Aviation's Los Angeles Division to work on an inertial navigation system for the Navaho missile.

Tex Thornton left Hughes in 1953, forming a firm initially called Electro-Dynamics. The following year this became Litton Industries. Singleton joined Litton in 1954, and by 1958, he was the vice president and general manager of the Electronics Engineering Division. During this period, he led the development of a new type of two-degree-of-freedom, low-drift gyroscope with associated digital electronics. This formed the heart of the Litton LN-3 Inertial Navigation System, which was the first such guidance system for fighter aircraft. Genesis of the Litton Inertial Navigation System With Singleton serving as the chief salesman, the first adoption of the LN-3 was by the West German Air Force in 1959. When Singleton was named to the National Academy of Engineering in 1979, the development of this gyroscope was cited as an example of his inventive genius.

While at MIT, Singleton became active in science fiction fandom. He and a friend drove to Chicago to attend Chicon, the 2nd World Science Fiction Convention, and in November 1940 he published the first issue of Nepenthe, a fanzine focused on science fiction poetry. In its two issues, Nepenthe included work by A. Merritt, Donald A. Wollheim, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Robert A. W. Lowndes, John Christopher, Wilson Tucker, Russ Chauvenet, John B. Michel and Harry Warner, Jr.

Singleton had met the former Caroline Wood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, while he was first attending MIT, and they married in 1942. Throughout their years together, the Singletons commissioned two significant American architects for two notable houses. The first, designed by architect Richard Neutra in 1959, was the well known mid-century modern 'Singleton House' in the Los Angeles Bel Air area. The second house was designed by architect Wallace Neff in 1973; it was a large residence of French-Norman style in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles.

He was personally a primary financial backer ($320,800) of Apple Computer when it was incorporated in 1977. During his working years, Singleton served as a director of Apple Computer, Inc. (1977–1980); member of the MIT Corporation, the MIT Governing Board (1968–1973); trustee of California Institute of Technology (1968–1974); member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (1959); and was a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). A financial and political conservative, Singleton was co-trustee of the blind trust for Ronald Reagan while Reagan was President of the United States.

For recreation, Singleton played tournament chess, collected wine, and hiked and camped in the wilderness areas of California. He could recite lengthy passages from Shakespeare and classical poetry. He studied Native American cultures and Western folklore.

Singleton spent much time to personal computers, programming algorithms and creating a computer version of backgammon specifically for Macintosh fans.

At 83 years of age, Henry Singleton, died of brain cancer on August 31, 1999, at his West Los Angeles home. He was survived by his wife of 53 years, Caroline, and five children. Caroline W. Singleton died in 2007. Their five children were James Singleton, John Singleton, William Singleton, Diana Singleton and Christina Singleton.