Frank Wilfred Jordan was a British physicist who together with William Henry Eccles invented the so-called "flip-flop

Flip-flop (electronics)

In electronics, a flip-flop or latch is a circuit that has two stable states and can be used to store state information. The circuit can be made to change state by signals applied to one or more control inputs and will have one or two outputs. It is the basic storage element in sequential logic...

" circuit in 1918. This circuit became the basis of electronic memory in computers.

Frank Wilfred Jordan was born in 1882 in Canterbury, Kent, England, the son of Edward James Jordan and Eliza Edith (maiden name unknown). Jordan received his secondary education at the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys

Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys

Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys is a selective boys school of over 1000 pupils and staff, located in the outskirts of Canterbury, Kent. It holds both Foundation and Grammar school status and has 'specialist college' status in science....

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

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. Alumni include H. G. Wells and Brian May and are distinguishable by the letters ARCS ...

, 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. There is little else known about him.

This flip-flop circuit became the most important circuit in computer technology for it can be given a large number of different actions.

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).