An idea man (the life of Otto Herbert Schmitt)

This work recounts the life of Otto Herbert Schmitt who is most widely known as the inventor of the Schmitt trigger, which he developed as a graduate student in the mid-1930s. Schmitt remained an active scientist, engineer, and intellectual until the mid-1990s - six decades that brimmed with energy, effort, and insights. Viewing his life in full context suggests that the Schmitt trigger was a mere prelude to his greatest innovation, which Schmitt fully articulated near the end of his career: the concept of a biomimetic approach to science and engineering - an idea rather than a gadget. Schmitt played instrumental roles in establishing a number of the professional associations that continue to provide vital means of interchange among biophysicists and biomedical engineers.