By Team Global
Publication Date: 2026-09-29 08:10:00
Modern electronics have many components, and most of us may never encounter or even think about them. One of the most basic is the resistor, a device designed to limit the flow of current. According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, resistors reduce the flow of electricity to allow electronic devices to operate safely, and variations of Otis Boykin‘s resistor technologies are used in products as diverse as TVs and radios, computers and smartphones.
Despite this range, Otis Boykin is not nearly as well-remembered as the magnates who founded tech giants. His career shows how technology develops and spreads: incrementally, year upon year, and often through people the wider public has never heard of. Even the formal recognition came late; he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014, more than three decades after his death in 1982. From his suspended studies to his five-year-long patent wait, and from his precise creations to the life-saving device that made his name known, let’s…
