Electronics

[ppppenguin]

My gut feeling, right or wrong, is that "electronics" refers to devices where the moving parts are charged particles, not lumps of iron and copper. So definitely valves and transistors. Probably crystal detectors and possibly, as an early outlier, Braun's cathode ray tube. Not sure I'd place Geissler tubes in electronics, they date from 1857: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geissler_tube

We've covered the etymology and easly usage of the word in earlier posts.

So, Marconi spanning the Altlantic in 1901 - barely electronics at all. De Forest's Audion - definitely electronics.

Relays - not electronics. Fleming's diode - electronics, but only just.

The history of the relevant professional institutions in the UK reflects some of this. The present day IET (I hated the name change then and still hate it now) started as the Society of Telegraph Engineers in 1871. Very much light current. Then the power engineers started to dominate and it became the IEE. The wireless and electronics folk in the IEE felt that power was too dominant and broke away to form the IERE in 1925. They didn't get back together until 1988.

[rant]The change to IET was the result of a bungled merger attempt with the IMechE. In the fall out from this the IEE merged with the electrical technicians body (IEEIE), itself a sensible unification of the profession. Alas they changed the name and disposed of any connection with electricity. [/rant]