> I thought Lee De Forest invented the triode, no?

I never knew Lee personally [:-)] but it is my understanding (quite 
possibly wrong) that he never really knew what he was doing at the 
time that he invented the triode, and that he was trying to "improve" 
existing thermionic diodes, whether for patent reasons or to 
differentiate his product, and that what he ended up with was as much 
a surprise to him as to anyone else. Of such happenstance are almost 
all great discoveries made. There are vanishingly few discoveries that 
the inventor for looking for what (s)he ends up with. At best if this 
does happen it is usually because the discovery candidate has left 
clues. eg Marie Curie and Radium.  For interest: not surprisingly 
AFAIK Marie died of cancer.


            RM

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