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
Charles Brown (engineer) Rione Amedeo, Naples, Italy. He married a Swiss woman and they had a son Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown who founded Brown, Boveri & Cie. Charles Brown died on 6 October 1905 at Basle. Charles Brown (engineer) Charles Brown (1827–1905) was a British engineer. He was born at Uxbridge on 30 June 1827 and was apprenticed to Maudslay, Sons and Field. In 1851 he moved to Switzerland to join the Sulzer company. In 1871 he left Sulzer to set up Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM). While at SLM he invented the Brown valve gear, a radial valve gear for steam