AIP’s video “One Science. Many Minds.” (The geodesic dome Nicole’s physicist father built for her and her brother made it into the film – as did some comments from her today.)
Nicole Cranberg, President of the Texas Fireframe Company, is honored to serve on the development board of the American Institute of Physics (AIP). Her father, Lawrence Cranberg, PhD, was a noted physicist and former professor who instilled in both her and her brother, Alex Cranberg, a lifelong love of science. Their father invented the Texas Fireframe grate nearly 40 years ago, and his scientific paper about his improvements in domestic fire building were published in the AIP publication, Amerian Journal of Physics.
“To this day, I’m not aware of any other fireplace grate that is documented in the scientific literature,” said Nicole. “My father considered that an important distinction. How else is the public supposed to know the difference between a between a genuine scientific advance and a me-too type of product – of which there have been many over the years? AIP’s scientific journals have played an important role in helping to tell the story of the Texas Fireframe grate.”
“My dad had a long history with the AIP – having many letters to the editor published in Physics Today over his decades as a reader, in addition to his scientific papers. Ten years after he invented the Texas Fireframe grate, he was interviewed about it for AIP’s Science Report – educational programming which AIP continues to this day (now known as Inside Science).”
The daughter of the inventor recalled her father’s passion for science. “My father could observe the most ordinary phenomenon – something as insignificant as a row of flames darting across a log when another log was lifted off of it
– and translate that into an invention that would change the way people build fires in their fireplaces. And then, of course, he would insist that everyone understand the physics behind the invention, and we were all well-schooled in Kirchoff’s theory of blackbody radiation which was the principle behind the arrangement of logs on the Texas Fireframe grate.”
In her term on the development board of AIP, Nicole has drawn from her marketing training and experience to assist the organization with fundraising and awareness of the two ways to give. In AIP’s “One Science Many Minds” video, she comments on the importance of the Neils Bohr Library and Archives which houses a vast and notable collection of historical papers, books, oral histories, digital collections and photographs related to the physical sciences. The Library also serves as a clearinghouse for 10,000 collections from over 900 repositories worldwide.
“I know my dad would be so pleased that I’m serving on the AIP development board,” said Nicole. “As different as my field of marketing is from his field of physics, it’s funny how our fields converged.”
