Max Mason (1877-1961), US mathematician. Mason's full name was Charles Max Mason. Mason's PhD was from the University of Gottingen, Germany, and his subsequent career was spent in the USA. During World War I, he worked on the submarine committee of the National Research Council, developing a device to detect submarines. This would later be developed as sonar in World War II. In the late 1930s and the 1940s, Mason chaired the team organising the construction of the Palomar Observatory in California, USA. This photograph is from the Bain News Service, one of the USA's earliest news picture libraries. The photographs date from the 1890s to the 1930s.