e991063.pdf

WHEN ELECTRONICS WAS YOUNG (1)

At the threshold of a new millennium:

a look back over centuries past

started. Although the work of Gray and Fry was im-

portant, as was the invention of the first capacitor, or

Leyden jar, in 1745, by von Kleist (and, almost a year

later, by Muschenbroek at the University of Leyden in

the Netherlands), but these were still concerned with

static electricity. Electronics as we know it is the sci-

ence and technology of the conduction of electricity,

that is, the movement of electrons, in a gas, vacuum,

or semiconductor. The conduction of electricity in

other materials or substances is really the domain of

electrical technology.

The study of electricity started so ably by 18th cen-

tury pioneers like Gray, Fry, Muschenbroek, and von

Kleist, led in 1800 to the invention of the dry battery

by Alessandro Volta, followed in 1803 by Ritter’s in-

vention of the rechargeable battery. Since the supply

of electric power provided by such batteries is impor-

tant to electronics, the year 1800 seems a good start-

ing point for a short overview of the history of elec-

tronics although, strictly speaking, almost all of that

history really belongs to ‘our’ century: the 20th.

Over the coming months, we shall have a look at a

number of milestones in the history of electronics and

the men and women who made it all possible.

Standing at the threshold of a new millennium, it is a

sobering thought to reflect that static electricity has

been known for almost 2500 years: the Greeks discov-

ered that friction on amber (Greek: ελεχτρον – elec-

tron) by fur gave rise to attractive forces. However, the

word electron was not used until 1897 when J J

Thomson discovered the electron as we know it.

Electrical technology and its offspring electronics

have had, and still have, a tremendous impact on

human society. Today, it would be difficult to imagine

a world without electric lights, radio, television, tele-

phone, cars (no ignition), lifts, aircraft. Of course,

without electricity there would still have been trains,

(mechanical) computers, and other appliances. The

development of electrical technology and, later, elec-

tronics may be compared with that of hieroglyphs,

cuneiform, and printing.

Static electricity was not studied for many centuries

after its discovery until the early 1700s, when Gray

distinguished between conductors and insulators and

Fry found that electricity can be positive and negative.

It is difficult to say when the history of electronics

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