Frank Wilfred Jordan (6 October 1881 – 12 January 1941) was a British physicist who together with

William Henry Eccles William Henry Eccles FRS (23 August 1875 – 29 April 1966) was a British physicist and a pioneer in the development of radio communication. He was born in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, England. Following graduation from the Royal College ...

invented the so-called " flip-flop" circuit in 1918. This circuit became the basis of electronic memory in computers. Frank Wilfred Jordan was born on 6 October 1881 in

Canterbury, Kent Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of the ...

, England, the son of Edward James Jordan and Eliza Edith King. He married Fanny Bentley Wood, a florist, in Canterbury, when based in Newhaven as a soldier on 7 December 1916. He died on 12 January 1941 in Coltham, Gretton Road, Winchcomb, Gloucestershire, England, aged 59. Information including date and place of birth, marriage and death are confirmed in Certificates from the General Register Office. Jordan received his secondary education at the

Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys (also known as The Langton Grammar School for Boys and simply referred to as The Langton) is an 11–18 foundation grammar school for boys and mixed sixth form in Canterbury, Kent, England. It was establish ...

in Canterbury, Kent, England. From 1899 to 1904, he was a student at the

Royal College of Science The Royal College of Science was a higher education institution located in South Kensington; it was a constituent college of Imperial College London from 1907 until it was wholly absorbed by Imperial in 2002. Still to this day, graduates from th ...

, from which he graduated with an Associateship in physics and a master of science degree. In 1912 he was a "lecturer in physics", presumably at the Royal College of Science. In 1918 he was an "electrician" at City and Guilds Technical College.See first page of the following patent: William Henry Eccles and Frank Wilfred Jordan, "Improvements in ionic relays" British patent number: GB 148582 (filed: 21 June 1918; published: 5 August 1920). There is little else known about him. This flip-flop circuit became perhaps the most important circuits in computer technology, allowing

binary data Binary data is data whose unit can take on only two possible states. These are often labelled as 0 and 1 in accordance with the binary numeral system and Boolean algebra. Binary data occurs in many different technical and scientific fields, wher ...

to be stored.

Footnotes

Publications

*F.W. Jordan (1907) "An instrument for measuring the strength of an intense horizontal confined magnetic field," ''Proceedings of the Physical Society of London'', vol. 21, pages 922–925. *F. W. Jordan (1912) "An improved Joule radiometer and its applications," ''Proceedings of the Physical Society of London'', vol. 25, pages 66–73. *F. W. Jordan (1913) "A new type of thermogalvanometer," ''Proceedings of the Physical Society of London'', vol. 26, pages 165–171. *F. W. Jordan (1914) "Some novel laboratory experiments," ''Proceedings of the Physical Society of London'', vol. 27, pages 461–476. *W H Eccles and F W Jordan (1918) "A small direct-current motor using thermionic tubes instead of sliding contacts," ''Proceedings of the Physical Society of London'', vol. 31, pages 151–153. *W. H. Eccles and F. W. Jordan (19 September 1919) "A trigger relay utilizing three-electrode thermionic vacuum tubes," ''The Electrician'', vol. 83, page 298. Reprinted in: ''Radio Review'', vol. 1, no. 3, pages 143–146 (December 1919). *W. H. Eccles and F. W. Jordan (1919) "A method of using two triode valves in parallel for generating oscillations," ''The Electrician'', vol. 8, no. 3, page 299. *W. H. Eccles and F. W. Jordan (1919) "Sustaining the vibration of a tuning fork by a triode valve," ''The Electrician'', vol. 8, no. 2, page 704. *F. W. Jordan (1919) "A method of measuring the amplification of a radio-frequency amplifier," ''Proceedings of the Physical Society of London'', vol. 32, pages 105–115. *W. H. Eccles and F. W. Jordan (1920) "A method of amplifying electrical variations of low frequency," ''The Electrician,'' vol. 8, no. 5, page 176.

Patents

*Frank Wilfred Jordan, "Improvements relating to radiometers, thermogalvanometers, and the like" British patent number: GB 191226631 (filed: 1912; published: 20 November 1913). *William Henry Eccles and Frank Wilfred Jordan, "Improved method of generating electric oscillations" British patent number: GB 149018 (filed: 20 March 1918; published: 12 August 1920). *William Henry Eccles and Frank Wilfred Jordan, "Improvements in applications of thermionic valves to production of alternating currents and relaying" British patent number: GB 155854 (filed: 17 April 1918; published: 6 January 1921). *William Henry Eccles and Frank Wilfred Jordan, "Improvements in ionic relays" British patent numbers: GB 148582 (filed: 21 June 1918; published: 5 August 1920) and GB 149702 (field 21 June 1918; published: 26 August 1920). {{DEFAULTSORT:Jordan, F.W. 1881 births 1941 deaths 19th-century English scientists 20th-century English scientists 19th-century British physicists 20th-century British physicists English inventors English physicists People educated at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys People from Canterbury Alumni of the Royal College of Science