A Thumbnail History of Electronics

I. Cathode Rays & the Discovery of

the Electron
Although many of the pioneers of 19 th Century physics, including Faraday,
were convinced on the basis of chemistry and the phenomena observed in
electrolysis that electric current consisted of the flow of particles of charge, the
nature of these charges was not understood. Even the basic question of
whether the charge of the particles was positive or negative remained
undetermined. The answers to these questions, and to the basic structure of
matter, were resolved by experiments that began with the study of electric
discharges in evacuated tubes. Along the way a series of discoveries were
made which led to the technological revolution of the 20 th Century.

William Crookes (1832-1919), heir at an early age to a large fortune,

carried out his investigations in a private laboratory. His studies of
electrical discharges in gases, which followed the development of the
cathode ray tube by Pluecker and Hittorf, and his observations of
cathode rays and the dark space at the cathode led to the discovery of
x-rays and of the electron. Crookes also invented the radiometer,
whose eventual explication verified the kinetic theory of gases.
d to
have verified the authenticity of psychic phenomena. Later he became involved
in the Theosophical Movement and there are references to his having exorcised
demons. In 1897 Crookes was knighted by Queen Victoria (who is also reputed
to have had an interest in the occult) and in 1909 was elected president of the
Royal Society.

Karl Ferdinand Braun (1850-1918) was director of the Physical

Institute and a professor of Physics at the University of Strasbourg
when he demonstrated the first cathode ray tube oscillograph, guiding
a narrow stream of electrons to a fluorescent screen and presaging
the modern television screen. Although little remembered today,
Braun made several important contributions. He discovered that
rectification occurs at a crystal/metal junction, leading to the
introduction of crystal receivers. In 1899, he introduced (sparkless)
inductive coupling to antennas and the first directive beam antenna. He
received the Nobel Prize in 1909 along with Guglielmo Marconi. Braun was in
New York to testify in a patent suit when the United States entered World War I;
he was interned as an enemy alien and died before the war ended.

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845 -1923) was 44 years old, head of

the Physical Institute and recently retired Rector (President) of the
University of Wurzburg when, in November, 1895, he discovered that
some unknown radiation coming from a Crookes tube could cause
crystals to fluoresce, pass through solid objects, and affect
photographic plates. Working alone, sometimes sleeping in his
laboratory, and maintaining great secrecy, he completed his research
and eight weeks later announced his discovery. The scientific and
medical implications of his work were immediately recognized and reported
world-wide following its publ
weeks some hospitals began to use x-rays. Roentgen became one of the most
renowned scientists in the world. He received many honors, including the first
Nobel prize in Physics and an offer (refused) to be raised to the nobility.

J(oseph) J(ohn) Thomson (1856-1940), the son of a Manchester

bookseller, entered college at fourteen and at twenty-eight was
elected a fellow of the Royal Society and appointed to the Chair of
Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory. His great discovery occurred in
1897 during the course of his investigations of cathode rays.
Thomson provided convincing evidence that the
rays consisted of charged particles; he
measured the ratio of charge to mass and was able to
estimate that the mass was equal to about 1/1800 of the
mass of a hydrogen atom. His discovery of the electron
won the Nobel Prize in 1906 and he was knighted two
years later. Thomson was described by Rutherford as

anyone."
 Robert A. Millikan (1868 -1953) began his career as a classics major
at Oberlin College, but agreed to teach Physics in order to earn more
money. When he was offered a fellowship in Physics at Columbia he
accepted, but again only because it was the best offer he could get
financially. His academic career at the University of Chicago was at
first devoted to teaching and administration and he did not begin to do
research seriously until he was almost forty. Then, in 1906 he began to
devise a series of improvements to the Thomson experiment that led
to the oil-drop apparatus in which the charge of the electron was measured
conclusively. His results were published in 1910 and the last resistance to the
atomic theory of matter was dispelled. In 1914 he published the results of the
research for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize - the direct determination of
- verifying the 1905 Einstein
theory of the photoelectric effect and the quantum nature of light.
II. Wireless Telegraphy
Maxwell's 1865 publication of a theory which unified electrodynamics,
magnetodynamics, and optics had seemingly little impact in Britain where it was not
widely accepted. Surprisingly, during the remaining fourteen years of his life, Maxwell,
who was a skillful experimentalist, did not attempt to verify the existence of the
electromagnetic waves that his theory predicted. However, the leading German scientist
of the period, von Helmholtz, believed the Maxwell theory and he set his pupil Hertz on
the track of producing and detecting electromagnetic radiation, opening the path to
wireless communication.

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857-1894), a professor of physics at

Karlsruhe Polytechnic, was the first to broadcast and receive radio
waves in the laboratory. Between 1885 and 1889, he used spark
discharges to produce electromagnetic waves. Hertz's radiator
consisted of a pair of aligned rods, with a spark gap between them
and capacitative plates at their ends. His receiver was a loop of wire
with a small gap across which a small spark could be observed
when the radiator discharged. Herz died suddenly of a brain tumor
when he was thirty six, perhaps never realizing that transmission and
reception over long distances was possible.

Edouard Eugène Désiré Branly (1844-1940) is revered in France

as the inventor of wireless telegraphy. In 1890, Branly, a professor
of Physics at the Catholic University of Paris, discovered that when
exposed to even a distant spark transmission field, loose zinc and
silver filings would cohere and provide a path of increased
conductivity that could be used to detect the presence of the
transmission. The "coherer" took radio transmission out of the laboratory
and made communication over long distances possible.
Oliver Joseph Lodge (1851-1940) held the chair in Physics at the
University College in Liverpool when he demonstrated a practical
form of the Branly coherer in 1894. Lodge added a device that
shook the filings loose between spark receptions. It became a
standard device in early wireless telegraphy. Lodge also obtained
the first patents for the use of tuned circuits to adjust the frequency
of receivers and transmitters. After 1900, however, Lodge devoted
himself to psychic research and attempts to communicate with the
dead. In 1902 he was appointed the first principal of the new Birmingham
University.

Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) failed the entrance exams to the

Italian Naval Academy and the University of Bologna but was
allowed by a family friend to attend lectures and laboratory at the
university. In 1896, at age twenty-two, he patented a successful
system of radio telegraphy . In the following years he introduced a
notable series of inventions and ingenious redesigns of transmitting
and receiving system components. In 1901 Marconi succeeded in
receiving signals transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean. It may be
fairly said that Marconi single-handedly advanced the development of radio
telegraphy by decades. Marconi's Wireless Telegraphy Company soon
established a net of coast stations in Britain for ship-to-shore
communication. These were taken over by the British General Post Office in
1910, but for more than a decade the Marconi Company enjoyed a monopoly
on maritime radio equipment sales by virtue of an agreement with Lloyds of
London to only insure ships that used their equipment. In 1909 Marconi
received the Nobel Prize for Physics.
Have I done the world good, or have I added a menace?