The 'Joule Thief'' (Pun on 'Jewel Thief')

[Nick]

Yeah, Wiki articles, don't yer love 'em

"The switching frequency in the example circuit opposite is about 50 kHz. The light-emitting diode will blink at this rate, but the persistence of the human eye means that this will not be noticed"

Indeed.

I got tetchy about the omission of any reference to Clive's origin of the name, so edited the Wikipedia article accordingly.

Clive is still active - he was commenting today on the TCBOUK (Tesla Coil Builders of the UK) group about a free eBook on the life of Tesla...