Ferdinand Braun

Also known as Karl Ferdinand Braun

German inventor and physicist (1909 Nobel Prize)

AI overview

Ferdinand Braun was a German inventor and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1909 for his work in physics. His contributions to science and invention were significant enough to earn him recognition as one of the leading figures in early 20th-century physics.

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Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize in Physics1909
“in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy”
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Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Ferdinand
Family name: Braun
Gender: male
Citizenship: Kingdom of Prussia
Place of birth: Fulda
Place of death: New York City
Occupation: university teacher
Position held: professor
Educated at: University of Strasbourg
Employer: University of Würzburg
Languages spoken: German
Native language: German
Doctoral advisor: Georg Hermann Quincke
Field of work: physics
Image: Ferdinand Braun.jpg
Work location: Marburg
Residence: Germany

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maintained by WikiProject: WikiProject Mathematics
Commons gallery: Karl Ferdinand Braun
member of: Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences
Commons category: Karl Ferdinand Braun
date of birth: 1850-06-06
date of death: 1918-04-20
ethnic group: Germans
nominated for: Nobel Prize in Physics
interested in: physics
student: Jonathan Zenneck
writing language: German
name in native language: Karl Ferdinand Braun

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Encyclopedic overview

Karl Ferdinand Braun ( German: [ˈfɛʁdinant ˈbʁaʊ̯n] ; 6 June 1850 – 20 April 1918) was a German applied physicist who shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi for their contributions to the development of radio. With his two circuit system, long range radio transmissions and modern telecommunications were made possible. His invention of the phased array antenna in 1905 led to the development of radar, smart antennas, and MIMO. Braun built the first cathode-ray tube in 1897, which led to the development of television, and the first semiconductor diode in 1874, which co-started the development of electronics and electronic engineering.

Braun was a co-founder of Telefunken, one of the pioneering communications and television companies. He has been called the "father of television" (shared with inventors like Paul Nipkow), the "great-grandfather of every semiconductor ever manufactured," and a co-father of radiotelegraphy, together with Marconi, laying the foundation for all modern wireless systems.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ferdinand Braun” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.