David E. Fisher
Born in Philadelphia in 1932, David Fisher graduated from Trinity College
in 1954 and completed his Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry at the Oak Ridge Institute
of Nuclear Studies and the University of Florida in 1958. The author of
over a hundred scientific research articles, he has also published ten
novels, including Hostage One (1989) and The Wrong Man (1993).
Celebrated for his ability to make science understandable to nonscientists,
he has written ten nonfiction works, including four books about science
for young adults. The other works include A Race on the Edge of Time:
The Birth of Radar (1987), Fire and Ice: The Greenhouse Effect,
Ozone Depletion, and Nuclear Winter (1990), Across the Top
of the world (1992), and The Scariest Place on Earth (1994).
He is currently a professor of cosmochemistry at the University of Miami.
Tube: The Invention of Television is the first
book he has written with his son.
Marshall Jon Fisher was born in 1963. He grew up in Miami and received
his B.A. from Brandeis University in 1985 and M.A. in English from City
College of New York in 1988. A man of many interests, he has been a tennis
pro in Munich, a sportswriter in Miami, and a freelance writer and editor
in New York and Boston. He has written articles for The Atlantic Monthly,
the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Sciences, and other magazines.
Like his father, he is known for his compelling science writing, and
his first book, The Ozone Layer, was selected by the
New York Public Library as one of the best young adult books of
1993. He lives with his wife in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
About the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
The Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic organization devoted to broadening public understanding of modem technology, its origins, and its impact on our lives. The Sloan Technology Series, of which Tube is a part, seeks to present to the general reader the story of the development of critical twentieth-century inventions. The aim of the series is to convey both the technical and human dimensions of invention, both the effort involved in devising new technologies and the comforts and stresses they introduce into contemporary life.