Inquiring who invented electronics is the same as wondering who created the Creation! You see, there are such numerous varied devices that are electronics that you really have to consider them bit by bit if you were actually trying to credit the True Inventor. Try to make a list of electronics: ipods, portable phones, netbooks, video games, Tickle Me Elmos, keyboards, Garmin, you just could list virtually each and every product that we use now and it would fairly be described as electronics. So who invented these incredible advances?
Obviously, each product has its own maker, so maybe the question to ask is what is the foundation of electronics and who thought up that? You might guess electricity is the main building block, but actually, the electron is. The electron was not made, of course but discovered by British physicist J.J. Thompson, who was the original to find evidence that that atoms, then believed to be the tiniest undivided material piece of matter, were comprised of tinier particles. That discovery was the start for all electronics development that has come next. And we certainly should thank the powers that be that we have enjoyed these amazing products. We use them all the time.
Edison discovered that electrons could move from one spot to a different one and that became the foundation for the idea of the diode. This was initially used in electronics devices related to messaging: Morse code and then the radio. Video output like television soon followed and the electronics version became the most popular when Bell Laboratories introduced it. Radar,to be sure, was part and parcel of that history. Sadly it was the Second World War that assisted in development of electronics.
You might suppose that computers came right on the heels thereafter, but it was some time before there was use of electronics in computers, mainly because of size problems. Remember the first computers were very large, occupied vast areas and it took quite awhile to get them down to a size that was reasonable for most uses. It was only recently that they evolved into the really small manageable machines that they are today. Then followed the transistor and then the integrated circuit. With that, the era electronics really took off and we ended up with medical imaging, digital cameras, Ipods and on and on; it would be infeasible to list it all.
It is wonderful to imagine what might succeed electronics. Perhaps Nano technology, optical technology or something we can’t even imagine? Will we stroll around with implanted little devices instead of headphones and have tunes, information, and even movies beamed without interruption into our skulls? Or will we devolve in reverse and return instead to radios and ordinary television? Who knows? You can only hope that you will be present for the trip!
