for all audio enthusiasts on this forum - the genesis of our passion!

[suri]

hi all,

this is where it all started?-

I Accidentally Invented Electronics in 1906

regds
suri

 

[sam9s]

Interesting Article.......the best (or worst for that matter) part...

He believed that "electron physiologists" would eventually be able to monitor and analyze "thought or brain waves," allowing "joy and grief [to] be measured in definite, quantitative units." Ultimately, he concluded, "a professor may be able to implant knowledge into the reluctant brains of his 22nd-century pupils. What terrifying political possibilities may be lurking there!

 

[thekinge]

Thanks so much Suri,

Hadn't even heard of Lee de Forest before you posted the link to this article.

For me the last two paragraphs were interesting:

In the end, de Forest wasn't quite sure whether to be pleased or dismayed by the world he had helped bring into being. In "Dawn of the Electronic Age," a 1952 article he wrote for Popular Mechanics, he crowed about his creation of the Audion, referring to it as "this small acorn from which has sprung the gigantic oak that is today world-embracing." At the same time, he lamented the "moral depravity" of commercial broadcast media. "A melancholy view of our national mental level is obtained from a survey of the moronic quality of the majority of today's radio programs," he wrote.
​

I wonder what he would think were he to watch today's news broadcasts, TV shows and movies! He would simply shoot himself!!

And then the next one:

Looking ahead to future applications of electronics, he grew even gloomier. He believed that "electron physiologists" would eventually be able to monitor and analyze "thought or brain waves," allowing "joy and grief [to] be measured in definite, quantitative units." Ultimately, he concluded, "a professor may be able to implant knowledge into the reluctant brains of his 22nd-century pupils. What terrifying political possibilities may be lurking there! Let us be thankful that such things are only for posterity, not for us."​

Sounds a lot like Matrix doesn't it?!

 

[thevortex]

Interesting article, Suri! Thanks for sharing.