Audion Audion The Audion was an electronic detecting or amplifying vacuum tube invented by American electrical engineer Lee de Forest in 1906. It was the first triode, consisting of an evacuated glass tube containing three electrodes: a heated filament, a grid, and a plate. It is important in the history of technology because it was the first widely used electronic device which could amplify; a small electrical signal applied to the grid could control a larger current flowing from the filament to plate. The original triode Audion had more residual gas in the tube than later versions and vacuum tubes; the
Jim McDonald (electrical engineer) Jim McDonald (electrical engineer) Sir James McDonald FREng FRSE FInstP FIET is a British educator, serving as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde since 2009. He is also a visiting professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. After seven years of work within the UK Electricity Supply Industry, McDonald joined Strathclyde University in 1984 and became Professor of Electrical Power Systems in 1993. In 2001 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "Electric Propulsion in Marine Applications: An Electrical Engineer's Viewpoint". In 2006