As a child, Arthur built an electrocardiograph from old radio parts, working with his brother Adrian (who would go on to perform the first heart transplant in the United States.
He went on to teach at Cornell University for the next ten years and later founded the Avco-Everett Research Lab (AERL) in Everett, Massachusetts, in 1955.
Kantrowitz's interdisciplinary research in the area of fluid mechanics and gas dynamics led to contributions in the field of magnetohydrodynamics and to the development of high-efficiency, high-power lasers.
He invented the total energy variometer in 1939, used in soaring planes, and is the co-inventor of an early scheme for magnetically contained nuclear fusion, patent application, 1941.
In 1950, he invented a technique for producing the supersonic source for molecular beams; this was subsequently used by chemists in research that led to two Nobel Prizes.
This technique has become an important method for experimentally studying this vital interaction and led to a variety of circulatory prostheses, including the artificial heart.
"[9] Kantrowitz is known for development of a theoretical concept of fluid choke points at supersonic and near-supersonic inlet velocities.
[10][11] The Kantrowitz limit has many applications in the gas dynamics of inlet flow for jet engines and rockets, both when operating at high-subsonic and supersonic velocities.
A recent high-speed transportation option for rapid transit between populous city-pairs about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) apart, the Hyperloop, has the Kantrowitz limit as a fundamental design criterion.
Attempting to pass a high-speed passenger-pod through a very low pressure tube runs squarely into the Kantrowitz fluid flow limit.
A major innovation in the Hyperloop proposal provides a novel third approach to remain below the Kantrowitz limit while still moving at high-subsonic velocities: adding a front-end inlet compressor to actively transfer high-pressure air from the front to the rear of the high-speed transport capsule, and thus bypassing much of the air that would have resulted in the dynamic shock of the choked flow.
In the Hyperloop alpha design of 2013, the air-inlet pump also provides a low-friction air-bearing suspension system for traveling at over 700 mph (1,100 km/h).