Birth of Karl Ferdinand Braun

Karl Ferdinand Braun was born on 6 June 1850 in Fulda. A German physicist, Braun made major contributions to the early development of electronics and radio. In 1897 he invented the cathode ray tube oscilloscope, which became the basis of television sets and radar screens for generations. He improved wireless telegraphy by adding a tuned circuit and a closed oscillating circuit, which increased the range of transmissions, and he discovered that some crystals conduct current in only one direction, a principle of the semiconductor diode. He shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi. He was a professor at Strasbourg, and was in the United States when the First World War broke out, and he did not return.

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