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
John Snell (electrical engineer) Central Electricity Board was established, the national grid created and the supply of electricity standardised. He was made GBE in 1925. In 1928 he began introducing major new electricity power systems in the West of England with his friend and then colleague, Dr John A. Purves. He was awarded the Faraday Medal for 1938 by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now the Institution of Engineering and Technology). He died after an operation at the London Clinic in 1938. He had married Annie Glendenning Quick of Biscovey, Cornwall, with whom he had at least one son. John Snell (electrical engineer) Sir