American inventor whose work with W.H. Eccles led to the invention of the first "flip-flop" circuit in 1919. Flip-flop circuits are electrical circuits that can have one of two "states," such as energized (or on) or de-energized (or off), and that can "flip-flop" between those two states. Such circuits were essential to designing the first logic circuits, such as those found in all computers, and this invention was crucial to the invention of digital computers.