Jered Yarosevich, age 16, of Rutland, Vt., for his question:

WHO WAS LEE DE FOREST?

Lee De Forest was an American inventor who was a pioneer in the development of wireless telegraphy. He designed a number of early transmitters.

De Forests greatest invention was a type of vacuum tube. He called it the audion and it was a three electrode thermionic tube or triode. This tube, which was invented in 1906, changed the entire field of electronics.

De Forest patented over 300 inventions.

The inventor's tube was one of the most important events in the history of radio. In 1910 he had Enrico Caruso sing on a broadcast and in 1916 he arranged the first radio news broadcast and started a broadcasting station.

De Forest was born in 1873 and died in 1961 at the age of 88 years.