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19 J. Pat. Off. Soc'y 419 (1937)
Lee De Forest

handle is hein.journals/jpatos19 and id is 427 raw text is: June, 1937, Vol. XIX, No. 6 Lee De Forest By A. D. MFAD EN* Lee de Forest stands in the thin front rank of the great conquerors of space. Scientists universally acclaim the audion or vacuum tube of Lee De Forest as one of the great inventions of modern times. As is well known, the vacuum tube is used for receiving, rectifying, transmitting and ampli- fying feeble electrical impulses. By use of the De Forest audion the electric current that carried President Hard- ing's oration on the occasion of the interment of the Unknown Solider was multiplied, engineers calculated, 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. With this device long distance telephone calls were at once made as clear as any local call. More important still, the audion comprised a means by which the voice and music, as distinguished from the interrupted flashes under the Marconi system, could be received through the ether. The vacuum tube thus sounded the death-knell of wireless telegraphy and ushered in the new era of radio. The mechanical applications of the audion are legion. These tubes are used to control the speed and security of express trains, to stop and level elevators; they are the backbone of talking pictures. In fact, the vacuum tube finds a use in nearly every industry-from medical ap- paratus for creating an artificial fever in a patient, on through television. Engineers predict that in future radio sets will consume but a small part of the output of these tubes. The industries now founded upon the vacuum tube have an appraised valuation running into billions of dollars. But the vacuum tube has brought mankind more than a new giant industry-indeed more than radio entertain- ment and telephonic communication to great distances, both by wire and through the air. The climax of radio is that it has unified and solidified the language and thoughts of this country, to an extent heretofore unapproached, just as the great achievement of Shakes- *This is one of a series of biographical sketches of living American inventors written by Mr. McFadyen for the JOURNAL

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