Richard David Albert

Richard David Albert, a former Lab physicist, died March 12. He was 90.

Albert was born Aug. 9, 1922, in in Elmira, N.Y. to Samuel Albert, the owner of a clothing store in Salamaca, N.Y., and Irene Mitchell Albert.

His mother died shortly after giving birth to her only child, so he was raised in Elmira by his paternal aunts, Nat and Gert, and grandmother, Bertha La Franz.

He graduated from the University of Michigan in physics. During World War II, he volunteered for the Navy, was made an ensign and honorably discharged.

He performed calculations for the Manhattan project. Through the GI Bill, he enrolled at Columbia University where he earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. His experiments confirmed Fermi's "Theory of Beta Nuclear Decay." Among his Columbia colleagues and friends were Luis Alvarez, Nobel Laureate and one of the inventors of radar, and Harold Brown, future Secretary of Defense, to whom he traded a homemade television to obtain his first automobile. Albert worked for Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pa., then General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y.

In 1955, he moved to Danville, and was recruited by the Lab to work on projects for nuclear-powered airplanes and rockets. For the Lab, he also journeyed to remote corners of the globe to measure the dispersion of neutrons by nuclear tests.

In the early 1960s, he published articles about sub-atomic particles. Moving to the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley, he designed rocket experiments that identified the charged particles responsible for the aurora borealis. He was listed in "Who's Who in Science" and "Who's Who in the World."

In 1981, he launched his own corporation, Digiray, and built the first working x-ray systems in his garage. He wrote 20 patents dealing with his Reverse Geometry X-ray (RGX) filmless, digital imaging technology, which combined television scanning with computer controls and was featured in Popular Science and on CNN.

Under his leadership, Digiray sold RGX systems to the U.S. Air Force, NASA, NSA, British Intelligence, Saudi Aramco and Kobe Steel of Japan. He allowed Kodak to license his patent for printing X-ray filter grids. This technology is used in hospitals throughout the world to produce clearer x-rays of the chest.

His hobbies included acting in plays, giving speeches at Toastmasters, throwing balls to his golden retrievers and performing jazz tunes on the saxophone while his wife played the drums.

During the last year of his life, he struggled with Alzheimer's disease and resided with his wife at the Kensington Assisted Living in Walnut Creek where he died.

He is survived by his wife, Marjorie Lee Albert; four children, John (wife Mehria) of Pleasant Hill, Calif., Charles F. (wife Christine) of Florence, Ala., Thomas (wife Sarah) of San Ramonand Caroline of Seattle, Wash.; four grandchildren in Alabama, Ryan Albert (wife Tisha) of Killen, Courtney (husband Timothy Sherrill) of Center Star, Danielle Albert of Florence, and one grandson in Kent, Wash., Cyoon McBride (wife Nasrin); four great-grandchildren, Kathryn, Alexis, Scarlett and Abigail, and three great-grandchildren, Jabar, Zohra and Zoheb.

A family celebration of his life was held March 19 in Briones, Calif.