Lee de Forest

Lee de Forest, born August 26, 1873, was an American electrical engineer who in 1908 invented the Audion triode vacuum tube, the first practical electronic amplifier. That three-element device enabled the electronic oscillator and opened the door to radio broadcasting, long-distance telephone lines, and talking motion pictures. He accumulated over 300 patents worldwide, but his career was a cycle of creation and collapse: he boasted of making and losing four fortunes, burned through money on major patent lawsuits, and was even tried for mail fraud (he was acquitted). The honours came anyway —…