INTRODUCTION
HISTORY OF OCCUPATION/PROFESSION
Electrical and Electronics Engineering deals with the behavior of electrons as they pass through gases, liquids, solids, and vacuums. Originally this field was an outgrowth of electrical engineering, an area concerned with the movement of electrons along conductors. As the field of electronics has expanded in scope, however, so has its definition, and today the term encompasses all areas of technology concerned with the behavior of electrons in electronic devices and equipment, including electrical engineering.
Although the field of electronics had its most spectacular growth and development during the 20th century, it is actually the product of more than 200 years of study and experiment. One of the important early experimenters in this field was Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). His experiments with lightning and his theory that electrical charges are present in all matter influenced the thinking and established much of the vocabulary of the researchers who came after him.
The invention of the electric battery, or voltaic pile, by the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) in 1800, ushered in a century of significant discoveries in the field of electricity and magnetism. Researchers working through-out Europe and the United States made important breakthroughs in how to strengthen, control, and measure the flow of electrons moving through vacuums. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these experiments culminated in Sir Joseph John Thomson's (1892-1975) description and measurement of the particle now called the electron.
During the early years of the 20th century, further discoveries along these lines were made by experimenters such as Lee De Forest (1873-1961) and Vladimir Zworykin (1889-1982). These discoveries led the way to developing equipment and techniques for long-distance broadcasting of radio