John Ambrose Fleming was the common thread that linked the work of three individual geniuses, yet every one of those three now overshadow him. Fleming, born on November 29, 1849, in Lancaster, England, was the son of a Congregational minister. He attended University College in London, England, graduated in 1870, and taught science for seven years. In 1877, Fleming entered Cambridge University to work for the brilliant Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), who had established equations describing the behavior of electricity and magnetism . Unfortunately, Fleming's association with Maxwell was a brief two years; Maxwell died at age 48 from cancer. Three years later Fleming became a consultant for the Edison Electric Light Company in London. In 1885, he was appointed professor of electrical technology at University College, where he remained for forty-one years. There he devised the " right-hand rule" which became an easy way to remember the relationship between the direction of a...