Description

Vacuum tube with a glass envelope and a metal base mounted on a wooden stand.

In December 1910, Austrian physicist and inventor Robert von Lieben and his business partners Eugen Reisz and Siegmund Strauss filed a patent for a gas-filled triode (a type of vacuum tube that consists of a cathode, anode, and a metal grid that separates them). This tube was specifically designed to amplify signals and was first used as a telephone line repeater. It was commercialized by the German firm Telefunken in 1912, and in 1913, Telefunken engineer Alexander Meissner used this type of tube to create a continuous-wave radio transmitter that was the first apparatus to transmit voice signals via radiotelephony over long distances.

This vacuum tube came from the collection of Edward L. Bowles and was likely used for MIT Physics demonstrations.