Events
The American Vacuum Society (AVS) is celebrating the event with a special session at its International Symposium & Exhibition (November 14-19, 2004, Anaheim, California).
Fred Dylla of Jefferson Lab in Virginia will open by describing Fleming's invention and its connection to Thomson's late-19th century discovery of the electron and Edison's invention of the incandescent lamp.
Paul Redhead of the National Research Council in Canada will trace both the rise and fall of the first electronics industry, based on the manufacture of vacuum tubes for radio, television and radar in the first half of the 20th century, and the vacuum technology used in electron tube manufacture.
The internal "getter" pumps that make such devices reliable will be described by Bruno Ferrario of Italian company SAES Getters. The session's final talk will be given by Gary McGuire of the International Technology Center in North Carolina, who will describe how, over the last 25 years, the vacuum tube and modern microelectronics have merged.
