The Third Element
A Brief History of Electronics
by
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Of all of the branches of science and engineering, electronics probably has had the most profound effect on our lives. Without electronics, our methods of communication would have stopped developing at a Victorian level, our medical sciences would be at a World War I level of technology, and the aircraft and airlines industries would barely have gotten off the ground. Electronic devices today enter practically every facet of our lives including entertainment, navigation, communication and medicine. This book is intended to give the reader a little insight into the origins of this dynamic science and an idea of the logical steps that the pioneers followed in the development of the electronics industry.
How do we define electronics?
Electronics, by the modern definition, is that part of electrical science which deals with semiconductors. As such, the history of electronics is really a continuation of the history of electrical knowledge.
From its first developments in the late 19th century to the coming of age of digital computers, the field of electronics and electronic design was well defined and occupied many thousands of engineers, technicians and others in closely related specialties. For every new problem, the design engineers would dive into the search for a solution and usually would come up with a “hard wired” design. Electronic circuits and systems tended to be inflexible, accommodating only the range of application that was designed into the circuits.
If a designer created a new, improved radio receiver, for example, that receiver might be usable on AM or FM or both, depending on the extent of the circuit design, but it certainly could not cook the breakfast eggs or make a long distance call unless those functions were specifically included in the design plan.
By contrast, today’s electronics almost invariably include a microprocessor, a marvelous tiny device that can be programmed, temporarily or permanently, to perform a host of different functions. A personal computer today with a modest degree of memory and control can be used as a calculator, a business accounting system, a television receiver, a communication channel and a hundred other unrelated functions without the need for any alteration to its basic electronic design. The electronic identity or character of the computer is merely a vessel for the brains of the machine; the software program that contains all of the synthetic intelligence of the computer drives the entire functional design.
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About the Book
The Third Element gives a glimpse of the history of electronics from its beginnings in Biblical times up to the computer era, about 1980. Without burdening the reader with technical details, it gives an idea of some of the problems that the pioneers of this industry faced and how many of our marvelous electronic gadgets came into being.
Electronics is just a further development of the electrical sciences; this book describes the contributions made by the earliest experimenters, leading up to the Lee de
It brings out some interesting trivia - did you know:
-there was no transcontinental telephone service until about 1915 when the electronic amplifier appeared?
-about the
-two American inventors patented the telephone on the same day in 1876?
Here is a fascinating look at the industry that probably has had a greater effect on our lives than any other scientific discovery in history. Read and enjoy it..
About the Author
Alfred Corbin received his initial electronics education in the U.S. Navy Electronics Technician Training Program during World War II. Following the war years, he attended the
After seven years as an analog computer designer at Engineering Research Corp. in Riverdale, Maryland, during which he had the opportunity to be involved in some of the company’s initial design work with transistors, Corbin migrated with his young family to the Cape Canaveral area of Florida to work as a Timing Systems engineer with RCA on the Atlantic Missile Range.
In 1960, he became one of the founders of Metric Systems Corp. in
In 1972, Corbin started Technical Services Laboratory where he was the owner/chief engineer for some 25 years, and presently serves as a consulting engineer. His son Andrew now manages the company.
In his career of some 60 years, Corbin has seen and been involved in a period of tremendous technological changes. In his experience as a design engineer, he has worked in and on vacuum-tube circuits, early transistor developments and more recently in applications of microprocessors and associated software.
Corbin has several patents or patents pending in computer circuitry, has published technical articles in various trade journals, and has previously published a textbook, “Computer Data Handling Circuits”.