Chester Floyd Carlson

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Chester Floyd Carlson

1906-1968

American physicist whose work led to the development of paper-copying machines. By 1938 Carlson had devised a basic system of electrostatic copying onto plain paper, which after 12 years work gave the xerographic method that is widely used. The process uses chemical, electrical, or photographic techniques to copy printed or pictorial documents. The process was bought by the Xerox Corporation.