Fleming valve valve proved to be the start of a technological revolution. After reading Fleming's 1905 paper on his oscillation valve, American engineer Lee DeForest in 1906 created a three-element vacuum tube, the Audion, by adding a wire grid between cathode and anode. It was the first electronic amplifying device, allowing the creation of amplifiers and continuous wave oscillators. De Forest quickly refined his device into the triode, which became the basis of long-distance telephone and radio communications, radars, and early digital computers for 50 years, until the advent of the transistor in the 1960s. Fleming sued De Forest for infringing his
Arthur Williams (electrical engineer) Arthur Williams (electrical engineer) Arthur Williams (August 14, 1868 – April 14, 1937) was an American electrical engineer, executive at the New York Edison Company, Federal Food Administrator of the City of New York, and first president of The National Association of Corporation Schools in 1913. Williams was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1868, the son of Rev. Christopher S. and Hannah Sanford (Rogers) Williams. He was educated in the public and private schools of Hartford, Conn., and New York City. At the age of sixteen, in 1882, he began his business career with an electrical contractor. He remained in