Lee de Forest
American inventor (1873-1961) · United States · Scientists · Died at 87
Lee de Forest is read about 138 times a day, in 52 languages.
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Something wrong?He invented the vacuum tube that made the electronic age possible - radio, long-distance calls, talking pictures - then spent most of what he earned fighting in court and losing fortunes as fast as he made them.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
Formal portrait of Lee de Forest
1910 Mariette Mazarin broadcast
1916 Lee DeForest Columbia broadcast at 2XG
1921 Mary White and Lee DeForest at station 6XC
A Contrast Between French and American radios, 1925
Ampli-news-deforest_(14569317490).jpg?width=1200)
Bell telephone magazine (1922) (14569317490)
De Forest in World Invention StoryIn their own words 2
, The microphone-amplifier-loudspeaker combination is having an enormous effect on our civilization. Not all of it is good!
Unwittingly then had I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite, whose structure shall persist while man inhabits the planet.
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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 - the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1922, the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1923, the Edison Medal in 1946. He died June 30, 1961.
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