# Mark Barr

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{{Short description|English-American inventor and polymath (1871–1950)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}'''James Mark McGinnis Barr'''<ref>Full name as listed in {{cite patent|country=US|number=1505366|fdate=21 November 1923|pubdate=19 August 1924|title=Counting Mechanism of Calculating Machines}}</ref>  (18 May 1871{{snd}}15 December 1950){{r|nyt|century|who}} was an [electrical engineer](/source/electrical_engineer), [physicist](/source/physicist), [inventor](/source/inventor), and [polymath](/source/polymath) known for proposing the standard notation for the [golden ratio](/source/golden_ratio). Born in America, but with English citizenship, Barr lived in both London and New York City at different times of his life.

Though remembered primarily for his contributions to abstract mathematics, Barr put much of his efforts over the years into the design of machines, including calculating machines.{{r|century|jiee}} He won a gold medal at the 1900 Paris [Exposition Universelle](/source/Exposition_Universelle_(1900)) for an extremely accurate [engraving](/source/engraving) machine.{{r|nyt|century|elj}}

==Life==
Barr was born in [Pennsylvania](/source/Pennsylvania), the son of Charles B. Barr and Ann M'Ginnis.{{r|who}}
He was educated in London, then worked for the [Westinghouse Electric Company](/source/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporation) in [Pittsburgh](/source/Pittsburgh) from 1887 to 1890.{{r|jiee}} He started there as a draughtsman before becoming a laboratory assistant, and later an erection engineer.{{r|jiee}} For two years in the early 1890s, he worked in [New York City](/source/New_York_City) at the journal ''Electrical World'' as an assistant editor, at the same time studying chemistry at the [New York City College of Technology](/source/New_York_City_College_of_Technology),{{r|jiee}} and by 1900, he had worked with both [Nikola Tesla](/source/Nikola_Tesla) and [Mihajlo Pupin](/source/Mihajlo_Pupin) in New York.{{r|nyt}} However, he was known among acquaintances for his low opinion of [Thomas Edison](/source/Thomas_Edison).{{r|century}} Returning to London in 1892, he studied physics and electrical engineering at the [City and Guilds of London Technical College](/source/City_and_Guilds_of_London_Institute) for three years.{{r|jiee}} 

From 1896 to 1900, he worked for [Linotype](/source/Mergenthaler_Linotype_Company) in England, and from 1900 to 1904, he worked as a technical advisor to Trevor Williams in London.{{r|jiee}}
Beginning in 1902, he was elected to the Small Screw Gauge Committee of the [British Association for the Advancement of Science](/source/British_Association_for_the_Advancement_of_Science). The committee was set up to put into practice the system of [British Association screw threads](/source/British_Association_screw_threads), which had been settled on but not implemented in 1884. More broadly, it was tasked with considering "the whole question of standardisation of engineering materials, tools, and machinery".{{r|screw}}
In January 1916, Barr was given charge of a school for machinists in London, intended to supply workers to a nearby factory for [machine gun](/source/machine_gun)s for the war effort; the school closed that June, as the factory was unable to take on the new workers at the expected rate.{{r|hmm}}

In the early 1920s, Barr was a frequent visitor to [Alfred North Whitehead](/source/Alfred_North_Whitehead) in Chelsea, London, but by 1924, he had moved back to New York.{{r|lowe}}
[Hamlin Garland](/source/Hamlin_Garland) writes that, "after thirty years in London", Barr returned to America "in order that his young sons might become citizens". Garland quotes Barr as saying that, for him, "to abandon America would be an act of treason".{{r|garland}}
In 1924, [Harvard University](/source/Harvard_University) invited Whitehead to join its faculty, with the financial backing of [Henry Osborn Taylor](/source/Henry_Osborn_Taylor). Barr, a friend of both Whitehead and Taylor, served as an intermediary in the preparations for this move.{{r|lowe|hocking}}
Whitehead, in subsequent letters to his son [North](/source/Thomas_North_Whitehead) in 1924 and 1925, writes of Barr's struggles to sell the design for one of his calculating machines to an unnamed large American company. In the 1925 letter, Whitehead writes that Barr's son Stephen was staying with him while Barr and his wife Mabel visited [Elyria, Ohio](/source/Elyria%2C_Ohio), to oversee a test build of the device. However, by 1927, Barr and Whitehead had fallen out, Whitehead writing to North (amid much complaint about Barr's character) that he was "very doubtful whether he will keep his post at the business school here";{{r|lowe}}
Barr was a "research assistant in finance" at [Harvard Business School](/source/Harvard_Business_School) around this time.{{r|hbs_bulletin}}

Barr joined the [Century Association](/source/Century_Association) in 1925,{{r|century}} and in his later life it "became practically his home".{{r|jiee}}  He died in [The Bronx](/source/The_Bronx) in 1950.{{r|who}}

==Contributions==

===Machining===
At Linotype, Barr improved punch-cutting machines by substituting ball bearings for oil lubrication to achieve a more precise fit, and using [tractrix](/source/tractrix)-shaped sleeves to distribute wear uniformly.{{r|legros}}
In an 1896 publication in ''The Electrical Review'' on calculating the dimensions of a [ball race](/source/ball_race), Barr credits the bicycle industry for stimulating development of the perfectly spherical steel balls needed in this application.{{ran|B96}}
The punch-cutters he worked on were, essentially, [pantograph](/source/pantograph)s that could engrave copies of given shapes (the outlines of letters or characters) as three-dimensional objects at a much smaller scale (the punches used to shape each letter in [hot metal typesetting](/source/hot_metal_typesetting)).{{r|legros}}
Between 1900 and 1902, with Linotype managers [Arthur Pollen](/source/Arthur_Pollen) and William Henry Lock, Barr also designed pantographs operating on a very different scale, calculating aim for [naval artillery](/source/naval_artillery) based on the positions, headings, and speeds of the firing ship and its target.{{r|sumida}}

===Golden ratio===
[[File:Phi uc lc.svg|thumb|upright=0.6|The Greek letter [phi](/source/phi), [symbol for the golden ratio](/source/The_golden_ratio) ]]

Barr was a friend of [William Schooling](/source/William_Schooling), and worked with him in exploiting the properties of the golden ratio to develop arithmetic [algorithm](/source/algorithm)s suitable for mechanical calculators.{{r|schooling}} 
According to [Theodore Andrea Cook](/source/Theodore_Andrea_Cook), Barr gave the [golden ratio](/source/golden_ratio) the name of [phi](/source/phi) (Φ). Cook wrote that Barr chose Φ by analogy to the use of {{pi}} for the [ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter](/source/pi), and because it is the first Greek letter in the name of the ancient sculptor [Phidias](/source/Phidias).{{r|cook}} Although [Martin Gardner](/source/Martin_Gardner) later wrote that Phidias was chosen because he was "believed to have used the golden proportion frequently in his sculpture",{{r|gardner}} Barr himself denied this, writing in his paper "Parameters of beauty" that he doubted Phidias used the golden ratio.{{ran|B29}} Schooling communicated some of his discoveries with Barr to Cook after seeing an article by Cook about [phyllotaxis](/source/phyllotaxis), the arrangement of leaves on a plant stem, which often approximates the golden ratio.{{r|gailiunas}}
<!--By including Barr's notation in his 1914 book on the golden ratio, Cook made it much more widely known.-->Schooling published his work with Barr later, in 1915, employing the same notation.{{r|schooling}}
Barr also published a related work in ''[The Sketch](/source/The_Sketch)'' in around 1913, [generalizing the Fibonacci numbers](/source/Generalizations_of_Fibonacci_numbers) to higher-order recurrences.{{r|gardner}}

===Other inventions and discoveries===
Around 1910, Barr built a lighting apparatus for painter [William Nicholson](/source/William_Nicholson_(artist%2C_born_1872)), using filters and [reflectors](/source/Reflector_(photography)) to mix different types of light to produce an "artificial reproduction of daylight".{{r|martin|sladen}}
In 1914, as an expert in electricity, he took part in an investigation of [psychic](/source/psychic) phenomena involving Polish medium [Stanisława Tomczyk](/source/Stanis%C5%82awa_Tomczyk) by the [Society for Psychical Research](/source/Society_for_Psychical_Research); however, the results were inconclusive.{{r|jspr}}
At some point prior to 1916, Barr was a participant in a business venture to make [synthetic rubber](/source/synthetic_rubber) from [turpentine](/source/turpentine) by a bacterial process. However, after much effort in relocating the bacterium after exhausting the original supply (a barrel of vinegar from New Jersey), the process ended up being less cost-effective than [natural rubber](/source/natural_rubber), and the business failed.{{r|hamilton}}
With [Edward George Boulenger](/source/Edward_George_Boulenger) of the [London Zoo](/source/London_Zoo), he built a timer-operated electromechanical [rat trap](/source/rat_trap).{{r|boulenger}}

In preparation for a diving expedition to Haiti by [William Beebe](/source/William_Beebe) and the [New York Zoological Society](/source/New_York_Zoological_Society) in early 1927, in which he participated as "physicist, master electrician, and philosopher", Barr helped develop an underwater telephone allowing divers to talk to a support boat, and a brass underwater housing for a motion picture camera.{{r|zoo}}

==Selected publications==
{{rma|tag=B96|reference={{cite journal|last=Barr|first=Mark|journal=The Electrical Review|year=1896|pages=769–770|title=The ball race|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=44dOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA769}} }}

{{rma|tag=B29|reference={{cite magazine|first=Mark|last=Barr|title=Parameters of beauty|magazine=[Architecture](/source/Architecture_(magazine%2C_1900%E2%80%931936)) (NY)|volume=60|page=325|year=1929}} Reprinted: {{cite magazine|title=Parameters of beauty|magazine=Think|volume= 10&ndash;11|publisher=International Business Machines Corporation|year=1944 }} }}

{{rma|tag=B30|reference={{cite magazine |first=Mark|last=Barr|title=The Man and the Turtle|magazine=[The Century](/source/The_Century_Magazine)|location=New York|publisher=[The Century Company](/source/The_Century_Company)|volume=120|number=1|date=Winter 1930|pages=18&ndash;28}} }}

==References==
{{reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name="boulenger">{{cite journal|first=E. G.|last=Boulenger|authorlink=Edward George Boulenger|journal=Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London
|title=Report on methods of rat destruction, part II|pages=227–244|url=https://archive.org/stream/proceedingsofzoo19191499zool#page/n321/mode/2up|year=1919|issue=Parts III & IV|doi=10.1111/j.1096-3642.1919.tb02121.x }}
See in particular [https://archive.org/stream/proceedingsofzoo19191499zool#page/240/mode/2up p.&nbsp;241].</ref>
<ref name=century>{{Cite book
|contribution-url=https://archive.org/stream/centuryassociati1951cent#page/30/mode/2up
|contribution=Mark Barr|pages=30–31|department=Century Memorials
|title=The Century Association Year-Book 1951–1952|location=New York|year=1952|publisher=[Century Association](/source/Century_Association)}}</ref>
<ref name=cook>{{Cite book
|last=Cook | first = Theodore Andrea | authorlink = Theodore Andrea Cook |year=1914
|title=The Curves of Life: Being an Account of Spiral Formations and Their Application to Growth in Nature, to Science and to Art: with the special reference to the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci
|location=London|publisher=Constable|page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924028937179/page/n455 420]|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924028937179
}} Reprinted 1979, New York: Dover Publications. {{ISBN|0-486-23701-X}}.
</ref>
<ref name="gailiunas">{{cite conference
|title=Proceedings of Bridges 2015: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture|year=2015
|first=Paul|last=Gailiunas
|contribution=The golden spiral: The genesis of a misunderstanding
|pages=159–166|url=http://m.archive.bridgesmathart.org/2015/bridges2015-159.pdf}}</ref>
<ref name="gardner">{{cite book
|last=Gardner|first=Martin|authorlink=Martin Gardner
|pages=91, 101|title=The Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions, Vol. II
|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year=1961}}</ref>
<ref name="garland">{{cite book
|last=Garland|first=Hamlin|authorlink=Hamlin Garland
|title=Back-trailers from the Middle Border
|publisher=Macmillan|year=1928|location=New York
|page=259|url=https://archive.org/stream/backtrailersfrom006041mbp#page/n275/mode/2up}}</ref>
<ref name="hamilton">{{cite book
|last=Hamilton|first=Allan McLane|authorlink=Allan McLane Hamilton
|pages=199–200|url=https://archive.org/stream/recollectionsofa00hami#page/198/mode/2up
|title=Recollections of an Alienist: Personal and Professional
|location=New York|publisher=[George H. Doran Company](/source/George_H._Doran_Company)|year=1916}}</ref>
<ref name="hbs_bulletin">{{cite news
|work=Bulletin of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association
|volume=4 |date=1 November 1927 | number=1|page=8|title=Faculty Notes
|url=https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:426991820$1i
}}</ref>
<ref name=hocking>{{cite journal
| last = Hocking | first = William Ernest | authorlink = William Ernest Hocking  | date = September 1961  | doi = 10.2307/2023185 | issue = 19
| pages = 505–516 | journal = The Journal of Philosophy  | title = Whitehead as I knew him  | volume = 58
| jstor = 2023185 }}</ref>
<ref name="legros">{{cite book
|title=Typographical Printing-Surfaces: The Technology and Mechanism of their Production
|first1=Lucien Alphonse|last1=Legros|first2=John Cameron|last2=Grant
|publisher=Longmans, Green, and Co.|location=London|year=1916
|url=https://archive.org/stream/LegrosGrantTypographicalPrintingSurfaces1916/legros-grant-typographical-printing-surfaces-1916#page/n237/mode/2up
|pages=204–205, 209}}</ref>
<ref name="lowe">{{cite book
|title=Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work, Vol.&nbsp;II|url=https://archive.org/details/alfrednorthwhite00vict|url-access=registration|first=Victor|last=Lowe
|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|location=Baltimore|year=1990|isbn=978-0-8018-3960-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/alfrednorthwhite00vict/page/83 83], 133–134, 170, 302, 307, 330
}}</ref>
<ref name="martin">{{cite book
|last=Martin|first=L. C.
|title=Colour and Methods of Colour Reproduction
|publisher=Blackie and Son|year=1923|location=London
|page=47|url=https://archive.org/stream/colourmethodsofc00martuoft#page/46/mode/2up}}</ref>
<ref name=schooling>{{cite book
| last = Schooling | first = William | authorlink = William Schooling | title = Napier Tercentenary Memorial Volume | year = 1915
| publisher = Royal Society of Edinburgh | location = London | page = 344
| contribution-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tiUzJzMKfqQC&pg=PA344
| contribution = A method of computing logarithms by simple addition
}}</ref>
<ref name=sladen>{{cite book| last = Sladen | first = Douglas | authorlink = Douglas Sladen | title = Twenty years of my life| publisher = Constable & Company | location = London | year = 1915| page = 348 | url = https://archive.org/stream/twentyyearsofmyl00sladrich#page/348/mode/2up/search/barr
}}</ref>
<ref name="sumida">{{cite book|last=Sumida|first=John|title=In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology, and British Naval |publisher=Naval Institute Press|location=Annapolis|year=2014|isbn=978-1-61251-481-9
|pages=74–75|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZVT5AgAAQBAJ&pg=PP74}}</ref>
<ref name="nyt">{{cite news|newspaper=[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)|date=16 December 1950|page=17|department=Obituaries|title=Dr. Mark Barr|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/12/16/87187209.html}} {{subscription required}}</ref>
<ref name="elj">{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QpQ9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA721|magazine=The Electrical Journal|page=721|volume=45|date=31 August 1900|title=Paris Exhibition Awards}}</ref>
<ref name="jspr">{{cite journal|journal=Journal of the Society for Psychical Research|date=February 1915|title=Report of the council for the year 1914|volume=41|issue=174|pages=19–28|url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofsociety17soci#page/24/mode/2up|bibcode=1915QJRMS..41..137.|doi=10.1002/qj.49704117405}}</ref>
<ref name="jiee">{{cite journal|journal=Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers|date=June 1952|volume=1952|issue=6|pages=163–168|url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5320490|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201128203856/https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5320490|url-status=dead|archive-date=28 November 2020|department=Obituary Notices|title=Mark Barr|doi=10.1049/jiee-2.1952.0056}}</ref>
<ref name="who">{{cite book
|title=Who was who: a companion to Who's Who, containing the biographies of those who died during the period |volume=VI (1941&ndash;1950)|year=1952|entry=Mark Barr|publisher=A. & C. Black|location=London}}</ref>
<ref name="screw">{{cite book|contribution=Small Screw Gauge—Report of the Committee|page=350; List of Members, p. 10|contribution-url=https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_qdsUAAAAYAAJ#page/n477/mode/2up/search/barr|title=Report of the Seventy-Second Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science|location=London|publisher=John Murray|year=1903}}</ref>
<ref name="zoo">{{cite book|pages=201–203, 211–212|url=https://archive.org/stream/beneathtropicsea00beeb#page/200/mode/2up|title=Beneath tropic seas; a record of diving among the coral reefs of Haiti|first=William|last=Beebe|publisher=G. P. Putnam's sons|location=New York, London|year=1928|authorlink= William Beebe}}</ref>
<ref name="hmm">{{cite book|title=History of the Ministry of Munitions|publisher=British Ministry of Munitions|year=1922|page=68|url=https://archive.org/stream/historyofministr0304grea#page/68/mode/2up}}</ref>
}}

{{Good article}}
{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barr, Mark}}
Category:Golden ratio
Category:1871 births
Category:1950 deaths
Category:Scientists from Pennsylvania
Category:American electrical engineers
Category:19th-century American inventors
Category:20th-century American inventors
Category:English electrical engineers
Category:English inventors
Category:Engineers from Pennsylvania

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Mark Barr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Barr) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Barr?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.