TOOLS OF SCIENCE

A series of meetings hosted by The Physics Museum,
The University of Queensland

For students, scientists, engineers, historians of science and technology, teachers,
collectors, and all those fascinated by old scientific instruments

 

August 22
Don Dinnie		 An Obscure History of Solid State Electronics

"Where did our modern electronic technology come from?
 ---Was it (as I intend to demonstrate) a logical incremental
evolution? Or was there (as some conspiracy theorists would have
us believe) a generational shortcut by means of reverse engineering
some crashed alien spacecraft technology!?
--What have the history books left out??"

The subject matter will outline a comparison of slow and tedious work by 'experimentalists' v/s learned 'theorists'. Of course, for the era 1898 to 1940s, I will be discussing mainly the work of experimentalists,and outline some of the less known though significant results they achieved.
I hope to demonstrate a faithful replica of a mid 1920s 'solid state' RF oscillator. This and some other smaller items will be built and provided by myself.  It may be shown that there is nothing 'new under the sun'

 Don Dinnie is a trade qualified Radio/Television Mechanic. Trained in the mid 70s, he was in the last group to study 'valve technology' before it was dropped from the curriculum. Of course he also dealt with germanium and silicon devices in depth. He has worked extensively with both "olde" and new devices through to his present occupation as a sort of 'resident feral technical repair-person' part time on Hayman Island Resort.