Career
In that year, publisher Ziff-Davis bought the magazine and moved its production to Chicago, naming Raymond A. Palmer as Sloane's successor. Sloane was involved with Amazing Stories from the very beginning, serving as Hugo Gernsback's managing editor. His own role in the magazine production grew and in 1929, he was named editor.
Nevertheless, he published first stories by luminaries such as Jack Williamson, John W. Campbell, Jr., Clifford D. Simak, and E.E. "Doc" Smith. It is thought that Sloane collaborated with Gernsback in originating the term scientifiction which was superseded by science fiction to describe this genre, as suggested in part by the first issue of Amazing Stories. Sloane was the author of The Standard Electrical Dictionary, first published in 1892, as well as How to become a Successful Electrician, Arithmetic of Electricity, Electricity Simplified, Electric Toy Making, Speed and Fun with Figures, Fortunes in Formulas, Motion Picture Projection, Liquid Air and the Liquefaction of Gases and numerous others.
Including a translation into English of Saint Francis of Assisi: A Biography written by Johannes Jorgensen. Sloane was also a prodigious contributor to many and various scientific and other publications such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, Alden's Cyclopedia and The Catholic Encyclopedia. Dr. Sloane, an 1872 graduate of Columbia University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1876, was a professor of natural sciences at Seton Hall University and held an A.M., an E.M., and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, as well as an LL.D.
Sloane's best known invention was the Self-Recording Photometer for Gas Power - the first instrument to record mechanically on an index card the illuminating power of gas.
In 1877, he described a new process for determining sulphur in natural gas.