Rufus Turner

Rufus P. Turner was an electronics author well known for his plethora of popular electronics titles on transistors, diodes, and radio electronics.

He earned his BA from California State College at Los Angeles and his MA and PhD degrees from USC. He was a licensed professional engineer in California and Massachusetts.

He began work with crystal diodes in 1922 and was involved with creating the 1N34A germanium diode at Sylvania in the 1940s. He began experimenting with germanium transistors soon after their invention in 1947. In 1949, he published the immensely popular article "Build a Transistor". He wrote over 30 books and 2500 articles during his career.