Valve amplifier thermionic valves. The simplest valve was invented by John Ambrose Fleming while working for the Marconi Company in London in 1904 and named the diode, as it had two electrodes. The diode conducted electricity in one direction only and was used as a radio detector and a rectifier. In 1906 Lee De Forest added a third electrode and invented the first electronic amplifying device, the triode, which he named the "Audion". This additional "control grid" modulates the current that flows between cathode and anode. The relationship between current flow and plate and grid voltage is often represented as a series
Xiaodong Wang (electrical engineer) Xiaodong Wang (electrical engineer) Xiaodong Wang () is an information theorist and professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University. He earned a BS degree in electrical engineering and applied mathematics from Shanghai Jiaotong University, an MS degree in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, and a PhD from Princeton University in electrical engineering. He formerly served as assistant professor of Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University before he joined Columbia as an assistant professor in January 2002. He is a Fellow of IEEE and an ISI Highly Cited author. He has won numerous prestigious awards, among them the National