1600 - Willam Gilbert concluded that the Earth itself is a giant
magnet
1745 - Ewald Georg von Kleist invents condensor
1746 - Pieter van Musschenbroek independently
invented a very similar capacitor called the Leyden jar (Wiki) (a 1 jar capactance is about 1nF)
1800 - Volta makes a battery to prove that electricity exists.
1820 - Hans Christian Oersted - discovered that a compass needle moved when electricity flowed through a nearby wire
1820 to 1827 - Andre Marie Ampere - produced a definition
of the unit of measurement of current flow, now known as the ampere.
1825 William Sturgeon exhibited electromagnet in England. He varnished the iron core and used bare wire. (i.e. no wire insulation)
1827 - Georg Simon Ohm discovers the mathematical law
of electric-current called "Ohm's Law". He used thermopiles as his voltage source to get a very low resistance.
1831 - Michael Faraday generates electricity using a magnet
and coil of wire
1828 - Joseph Henry invents
electromagnet
and publishes papers 1831- He sought no patents on any of his inventions, believing personal
profit
to be incompatible with the dignity of science. Henry
used wire that he insulated by winding silk or cottton tightly coiled on an iron core, much more efficient than
Sturgeon's loose wire electromagnet.
1837 to 1870 - Telegraph system uses electromechanical relays (Is this
the first appearance of the relay?)
1839 - June 27 us patent 1200
"Clock", N. Jerome - uses brass plates to make clock instead of
wood. Allows making low cost clocks that are exported world wide
and develops U.S. brass and metal working ability.
1865 Interchangable parts started after the Civil War (1861 - 1865)
<>1873 - James Clerk Maxwell publishes his "Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism" (Maxwell's equations)1877 - Edison records voice on tinfoil cylinder phonograph
1878 - Edison opens first DC power utility company.
1887 - Almon Strowger, a Kansas City (7 railroads) mortician, invents the automatic dialing phone system to keep the local operators from directing calls to his competitors.
1888 - Nikola Tesla invented the AC motor and AC power system, the DC
system used by Edison required the generator to be within a few miles of
the load.
Tesla's AC system allowed transformers to
step up the voltage
for long haul transmission and step back down near the load.
Although A.G. Bell's patent for the telephone is often reffered to as
"the most valuable" patent, I'm not sure if Tesla's AC motor patent is
as valuable or more so? WIthout the AC motor the AC electrical
system was only good for lighting, like done by George
Westinghouse. Factories need motors and without an AC motor DC
electricity or steam power were the main options, hydro in some
locations.
I heard that he did not invent the center tap on the last transformer
(pole pig). A grounded center tapped secondary feeds the final
user. This is a critical safety feature. If there was a primary
to secondary short in the transformer, the full high voltage (typically
many kilovolts) would show up in your house causing great damage, fire,
destruction, etc.
1889- Herman Hollerith uses punched cards to tabulate the U.S. census
in 6 weeks, the prior census took many years to count by hand.
- N. Tesla AC motor patent is granted Dec 3, 1889 # 416194
Electric Motor class 310/166 - there are a few patents prior to Tesla's
in the 310/166 class that were attempts at an AC motor using the bobbin
coil structure that was popular for DC motors.
Jan 10, 1899 patent
617592 Electric Device is granted for the first Flash Light. Conrad Hubert signes as witness and his employee David Misell is the inventor
1898-1900--- Danish Inventor Valdemar Poulsen invents and patents his "Telegraphone," a wire recorder
1904 - John Fleming devises the first practical electron tube known as the "Fleming Valve" on schematic diagrams tubes are denoted as V1, V2, etc.
1922 - Philo T. Farnsworth, at age 13, invents television to work like the furrows in the field that he plowed. He also inventer the Fusor which was further developed by Bussard to supply hot fusion in a reactor that's no radio active when it's turned off and has no radioactive waste.
1928 - Dr. Fritz Pfleumer patent in Germany for what was to becaome
tape recording
1932 The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) is started to get A.C. electrical
power to rural areas. Most
cities now had AC power. But DC was still there and dynamos were
common to convert from AC to DC which was still used for things like
elevators where DC provided much better control.
1936 - Alan Turing writes about the Turing machine: "On Computable Numbers.."
1937 - George Stibitz used telephone type electromechanical relays for digital logic
1959 - Farichild Semiconductor, charlston Rd, Mtn. View, makes the first practical planar integrated circuit
1941 - Pearl Harbor attached bringing the U.S. into WW II
1943 - Work to crack Germany's secret military codes begins at the UK government's Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park
1944- The first experimental V2 rocket is launched from Peenemunde in Germany
1945 - Arthur C. Clarke writes his seminal piece 'Extra-Terrestrial Relays' which Is published in Wireless World the following October. This discusses the idea of establishing a system of geostationary satellites that can provide global communications.
1946 - ENIAC is revealed to the US public for the first time. A panel of lights is added, to give news reporters some idea of how fast the machine is working. Thus a Hollywood stereotype is created and the giant brain becomes a feature of 1950s science fiction.
1947 - transistor invented by Bardeen, Shockley and Brattain
1948 - Peter Goldmark, while an employee of the Columbia Broadcasting
System (CBS), invents the 331/3-rpm record, to overcome the need to constantly
change or turnover the existing 78rpm discs. He earns no royalties
for his invention but, in lieu, receives free copies of every LP produced
by Columbia.
1957 Oct 4 Sputnik in orbit. (Wiki)
- the Doppler shift could be used to determine it's orbital
elements. That means that if it broadcast it's orbital elements
then you could determine where you are, i.e. Transit (Wiki) satellites.
1960 to 1965 - my college electronics classes cover both tube and transistor
technology and some products use both
1960 April 13 Transit 1B is launched (1A failed to orbit).
1961 - Leonard Kleinrock at MIT publishes first paper on packet switching (precursor to the internet)
1962 - J.C.R. Licklider, head of the computer research program at DARPA, talked about his "Galactic Network" concept
1974 - Sony develops the Betamax VCR
1966 - Lawrence G. Roberts put together his plan for the "ARPANET"
1966 - P T Farnsworth (see 1922) patent 3258402 Electronic Discharge Device for Producing Interactions between Nuclei - Invents the Fusor
1974 - Bob Kahn & Vint Cerf publish "A protocol for packet network interconnection" the TCP/IP description (basis of the modern internet)
1976 - JVC develops the VHS VCR
1978 - Feb 22 the first GPS satellite launched.
1982 - first digital audio 5-inch CD
1987 - Digital Audio Tape (DAT) players introduced
1992 - Bussard patent 5174945 Controlled thermonuclear fusion power apparatus and method Dec 29, 1992 based on the Fusor
1996 - DVD players started selling in Japan, and began in 1997 selling in the U.S.
2000 - MP3 ( MPEG Layer III) compressed digital audio recording introduced
(works will with the internet) MP3 dramatically reduces file size with
only a
small loss of quality.
Back to Brooke's Electronics, Home page
This is the 05769 hits since May 04 2007 time this page has been accessed since since 2 March 2001.