Karl Ferdinand Braun

Infobox_Scientist
name = Karl Ferdinand Braun


imagesize = 180px
caption = Ferdinand Braun
birth_date = birth date|1850|6|6|mf=y
birth_place = Fulda, Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), Germany
death_date = death date and age|1918|4|20|1850|6|6
death_place = Brooklyn, New York
nationality = Germany
field = Inventor and physicist
work_institutions = University of Strasbourg
alma_mater = University of Marburg
University of Berlin
doctoral_advisor = August Kundt
doctoral_students = Leonid Isaakovich Mandelshtam
known_for = CRT, Cat's whisker diode
prizes = Nobel Prize in Physics (1909)
religion =
footnotes =

Karl Ferdinand Braun (6 June 1850 in Fulda, Germany – 20 April 1918 in New York City, U.S.) was a German inventor, physicist and Nobel Prize laureate.

Biography

Braun was educated at the University of Marburg and received a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1872. In 1874 he discovered that a point-contact semiconductor rectifies alternating current. He became director of the Physical Institute and professor of physics at the University of Strasbourg in 1895.

In 1897 he built the first cathode-ray tube oscilloscope. CRT technology is only now, over a century later, gradually being replaced by flat screen technologies (such as LCD, LED and Plasma) on television sets and computer monitors. The CRT is still called the "Braun tube" ("Braunsche Röhre") in German-speaking countries (and in Japan: "Buraun-kan").

During the development of radio, he also worked on wireless telegraphy. Around 1898, he invented a crystal diode rectifier or Cat's whisker diode. Guglielmo Marconi used Braun's patents (among others). Braun's British patent on tuning was used by Marconi in many of his tuning patents. Marconi would later admit to Braun himself that he had "borrowed" portions of Braun's work. In 1909 Braun shared the Nobel Prize for physics with Marconi for "contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy."

Braun went to the United States at the beginning of World War I (before the U.S. had entered the war) to help defend the German wireless station at Sayville, New York, against attacks by the British-controlled Marconi Corporation. Braun died in his house in Brooklyn, New York, before the war ended in 1918.

ee also

* "Radio": History of radio, Invention of radio
* "People": Edouard Branly

References

1. K.F. Braun: "On the current conduction in metal sulphides (title translated from German into English)", Ann. Phys. Chem., 153 (1874), 556. (In German) An English translation can be found in "Semiconductor Devices: Pioneering Papers", edited by S.M. Sze, World Scientific, Singapore, 1991, pp. 377-380.

2. Keller, Peter A.: The cathode-ray tube: technology, history, and applications. New York: Palisades Press, 1991. ISBN 0-9631559-0-3.

3. Keller, Peter A.: "The 100th Anniversary of the Cathode-Ray Tube," Information Display, Vol. 13, No. 10, 1997, pp. 28-32.

External articles and references

;Patent
*US patent|0750429
*US patent|0763345;Other
* " [http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1909/braun-bio.html Ferdinand Braun – Biography] ". Nobel Lectures. Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967.
* Naughton, Russell, " [http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/BRAUN_BIO.html Karl Ferdinand Braun, Dr : 1850 - 1918] ".
* " [http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/braun.htm Karl Ferdinand Braun ] ". Biographies of Famous Electrochemists and Physicists Contributed to Understanding of Electricity.
* Rybak, James P., "Forgotten" Pioneers of Wireless; [http://www.antiquewireless.org/otb/forgoten.htm Part 5 - Karl Ferdinand Braun] ".
* " [http://www.hars.de/braun/ Karl Ferdinand Braun, 1850-1918] ". (German) ( [http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?url=http%3A//www.hars.de/braun/&lp=de_en&tt=url English] translation)
* [http://www.fbh-berlin.com The Ferdinand-Braun-Institut fuer Hoechstfrequenztechnik Berlin, Germany]
* Alfred Thomas Story " [http://books.google.com/books?id=qFMbsXGH8pYC A Story of Wireless Telegraphy] ". D. Appleton and company 1904

Persondata
NAME= Braun, Karl Ferdinand
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Inventor and physicist
DATE OF BIRTH= birth date|1850|6|6|mf=y
PLACE OF BIRTH= Fulda, Hesse-Kassel, Germany
DATE OF DEATH= death date|1918|4|20|mf=y
PLACE OF DEATH= Brooklyn, New York