Dr. John Wesley Clark – Scientist

Former Missoula Man Harnesses Atom for Medicine

The atom has been harnessed – a former Missoulian a major contributor – into a miniature x-ray machine that weighs less than 20 pounds, requires no electric power and is explosion proof.

The machine is called ISO-X. The power for its x-rays comes from the radioactive isotope of a rare earth, thulium 170, which is produced by thermal neutron bombardment in an atomic pile.

Production of the diminutive machine has been started by Litton Industries at its Beverly Hills, Calif., plant. The former Missoulian credited with having played a major role in its development is the head of its Nuclear Electronics Division, Dr. John W. Clark. He is a son of Dr. and Mrs. W. P. Clark of Missoula. The father is a professor emeritus of Montana State University.

ISO-X, said scientist Clark, is safe to use and requires no special precautions by the operator. He said the radioactive thulium is safely inclosed in an aluminum capsule which is encased in lead and the machine is built so that the thulium can’t be exposed accidentally.

Radiation from ISO-X is equivalent to the Coolidge x-ray tube familiar to the medical profession, operating in the 80,000 volt range.

ISO-X is used exactly the same way as conventional x-ray equipment and produces excellent radiographs of the same size. Clark said the x-ray technician will not have anything new to learn.

A built-in timer provides for preset exposures of up to 60 seconds. When intensity of the radioactive isotope drops to a certain level, which takes from six months to a year depending on the use, the thulium capsule is replaced.

Dr. Clark said uses of the new machine appear to be limited only by imagination. In his opinion, ISO-X will fill real needs, particularly in medicine and in industry. Because it is so light and does not require electricity, the machine can be used in many ways which have been impractical or too expensive with standard x-ray machines.

Dr. Clark suggested it might be used where there are accidents of disasters, in ambulances or homes or patients, in war-time battle zones on land and at sea, as standby equipment in hospitals, in inspection of commercial products where access is difficult.

The scientist believes its greatest service to the medical profession will be in the making of radiographs of body extremities and in locating foreign objects in the body. He said dentists will find ISO-X valuable due to its light weight, compactness and ease of direction to any angle.

Ideas for commercial use, he said, include inspection of metal castings, forgings and welds and inspection of airplanes in the assembly line and as preventive maintenance. ISO-X, he said, will be useful to police for various purposes, such as to check contents of boxes and packages without opening them.

The use of thulium radiations, he said, was studied by several British scientists and its practicability was established last year at the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Ill., of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Dr. Clark was credited with having played a major role in development of the machine by his boss, Charles B. Thornton, president and board chairman of Litton Industries.

The scientist was born at Williamsburg, Va., on April 1, 1915. After a year in France his family moved to Missoula in 1921 and he entered the first grade at the Roosevelt School. He finished Missoula County High School in 1931 and graduated from Montana State University in 1935 with honors in physics and mathematics. He took a teaching fellowship at the University of Illinois and received a master of science in 1936 and doctorate in physics in 1939.

That fall he went to work for the Bell Telephone Research Laboratories in New York City. From there he went to the Collins Radio Corp. at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as director of its research division and then to Varian Associates in San Carlos, Calif. He joined Litton Industries late in 1953.[1]

 The above article appeared in the Sunday Missoulian on February 13, 1955.

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 Clark Presented IRE Fellow Award

Dr. John W. Clark, manager of Hughes Aircraft Company’s nuclear electronics laboratory, was presented a Fellow Award by the Institute of Radio Engineers, Los Angeles section, at a meeting in the Biltmore hotel.

The award, honoring Dr. Clark’s contributions to research in radiation effects on electronic systems, will be repeated at the IRE national convention in New York, March 22, when all its fellows will be recognized. The institute grants 75 such awards annually in the United States and abroad.

Dr. Clark’s laboratory also builds Mobot[2] remote control handling devices to replace man in dangerous areas; radiation detectors, linear electron accelerators, and a cyclotron “atom smasher.” A
Mobot is doing Atomic Energy Commission work at Sandia Corp., Albuquerque, N.M.; a Hughes cyclotron is being used by the physics department of Pomona College, Pomona, Calif.

Dr. Clark is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Wesley P. Clark, 310 McLeod Ave., Missoula.

 The above article appeared in the Sunday Missoulian on March 12, 1961.

 Dr. John Wesley Clark, UM Graduate, Dies

Dr. John Wesley Clark, a former Missoula resident who later became a noted scientist, has died at his home in Santa Monica, Calif.

Dr. Clark, 53, was a Missoula resident from 1922 to 1936. His father, Dr. Wesley P. Clark, was professor of classical languages and dean of the graduate school at the University for many years.

The younger Dr. Clark was president of the Clark-Wilson Co., a firm specializing in equipment for oceanographic research, at the time of his death.

Born April 1, 1915, in Williamsburg, Va., he came to Missoula seven years later. He was graduated from the University of Montana in 1935 with a B. A. degree in mathematics and physics, and received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois in 1939.

During his career as a scientist, Dr. Clark was associated with Bell Telephone Laboratories, Collins Radio Co., Varian Associates, Litton Industries, Hughes Aircraft Co., Battelle Memorial Institute and General Electric before forming his own company in Santa Monica.

Numerous articles by Dr. Clark were published in trade and technical journals and he has 13 government patents to his credit, the first one in 1941 for a telephone switching circuit using gas tubes and the last one in 1960 for a nucleonic X-ray apparatus.

Survivors include his widow, Ruth; four sons; a brother, Dr. Robert K. Clark, and two sisters, Mrs. J. C. Gasser of Quantico, Va., and Mrs. Norman Bent, presently in Germany.

 The above obituary appeared in the Sunday Missoulian on July 21, 1968.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litton_Industries

[2] http://cyberneticzoo.com/teleoperators/1959-mobot-1-hughes-aircraft-american/
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