August 26, 1873: Birthday of Lee DeForest, inventor of the Radio Vacuum Tube

August 26, 1873: This day is the birth day of Lee DeForest, a talented scientist who invented the triode, a type of electron tube that has a three-element vacuum tube. In the future this invention was improved, becoming the audion tube, one of the significant parts in making the invention of radio possible.

Lee DeForest known as the owner of hundreds of patents for items including the photoelectric cell and the surgical radio knife. But his invention of the triode had the biggest impact for the advent of radio.

DeForest was born to a religious family and studied at Yale, majoring in Physics and Electricity. From 1900 until 1910, DeForest worked on improving the wireless telegraph. In 1907 he invented an arc-based radiotelephone transmitter and audio receiver, which he followed up by writing an estimation of wireless transmission.

Lee DeForest also the inventor of phonofilm, which allows people to enjoy not only the pictures in movies, but also the dialogue. The phonofilm process is a sound recording that goes directly onto the film as a parallel strip.

Lee DeForest died in 1961. His ingenuity had a big impact on the development of telecommunication technology in the world.