John B. Johnson
1887 – 1970
Measured thermal noise in resistors.
A Swedish-American physicist at Bell Labs, Johnson measured the thermal noise inherent in every resistor in 1928; Nyquist explained it. The phenomenon — Johnson–Nyquist noise — sets the noise floor of all electronics.
The thermal-noise tools here compute the floor Johnson first observed: the hiss of warm electrons that no receiver can escape.
Portrait: a stylized blueprint-line rendering, not a photograph.
Contributions in the toolbox
- 1928
Measures thermal noise in resistors.
→ Thermal Noise Floor