Über die akustische Beobachtung und galvanometrische Registrierung von Elementarstrahlen und Einzelionen in Zeitschrift für Physik 23 No. 1 pp. 361-378, 1924 [1st EDITION OF THE FIRST AMPLIFIED GEIGER COUNTER and the first use of vacuum tube triodes to amplify weak signals]

Berlin: Julius Springer, 1924. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST AMPLIFIED GEIGER COUNTER and the first use of vacuum tube triodes to amplify weak signals.

Pierre and Marie Curie, as well as Rutherford, used an ionization chamber in their studies of radioactivity. The current that was produced by a single particle, however, was far too weak to bed elected by an electrometer. "This led Rutherford and Geiger to the idea to amplify the signal by a proliferation of electrons. However, the Rutherford-Geiger counter was simply a counter, which could detect a particle passing by but which gave no information concerning its nature or its energy.

In 1924, Greinacher "had the idea of sending the signal emanating from a point counter onto the grid of a triode tube in order to amplify the signal which was sent to a telephone which would emit an audible ‘tick' each time a particle was detected" (Fernandez, Unravelling the Mystery, 217). Greinacher invented the tube himself, one with a central cathode, surrounded by a curved or tubular anode. "This circulation would cause very high frequency energy to be generated inside the tube" (Morton, Electronics, 14).

This was the first use of vacuum tube triodes to amplify weak signals. In combining vacuum tube amplifiers with needle counters, Greinacher here describes the first amplified Geiger counter. Greinacher would "later with a small ionization chamber with the aim of amplifying the signal" (Wikipedia). CONDITION & DETAILS: Berlin: Julius Springer. NOT an ex-library copy. 4to. (9 x 6.5 inches; 225 x 163mm). Full volume. Handsomely bound in black cloth gilt-lettered at the spine. Tightly and solidly bound. Bright and clean throughout. Near fine.