J. B. Gunn

John Battiscombe "J. B." Gunn (13 May 1928 – 2 December 2008), known as Ian or Iain, was a British physicist, who spent most of his career in the United States. He discovered the Gunn Effect, which led to the invention of the Gunn diode, the first inexpensive source of microwave power that did not require vacuum tubes. He was born John Battiscombe Gunn, but only used that name in legal documents.

Early life

J. B. Gunn was born in 1928 in Cairo, Egypt, to Battiscombe "Jack" Gunn, a leading Egyptologist, and Lillian Florence (Meena) Meacham Hughes Gunn, who studied psychoanalytic technique with Sigmund Freud. In 1931 the family moved to Glen Riddle, Pennsylvania, while Jack was Curator of the Egyptian Section of the museum at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. As a young boy he already showed an interest in electronics. As his older half brother Pat (Spike) Hughes, wrote of a visit to Glen Riddle in 1933: "...at 4 years and a few months, Iain was already passionately interested in seeing how things worked, and showed a typical lack of concern for what came out of a loudspeaker, so long as he could make out why it came out at all. Thus at Iain's bedtime every night the Glen Riddle radio set had to be collected up and put together again – mainly for my benefit, for I suddenly felt myself cut off from my New York roots unless I could hear my favourite radio stations." The house at Glen Riddle was later owned by Ken Iverson, an IBM colleague and one of the inventors of APL.

JB

JB or J.B. may refer to:

Entertainment

Sports

Justerini & Brooks

Justerini & Brooks is a fine wine business selling wines to merchants, restaurants, hotels and private clients. It is known for developing the J&B blended Scotch whisky. The company is owned by multinational Diageo plc.

Products

J&B Rare Blend, the standard J&B whisky brand, is a blend of forty-two Scottish malt and grain whiskies. Single malts Knockando, Auchroisk and Glen Spey are at its heart. In terms of flavour, its closest competitor is Cutty Sark.

Furthermore, J&B's portfolio includes:

It is aimed mainly for the export market and is available in a few different variants in Europe, America and Korea among other places. The company, originally called Johnson & Justerini, was founded in 1749 in the City of London delivering fine wine and spirits to various aristocratic households, as well as supplying King George III. In 1831, Johnson & Justerini was bought by Alfred Brooks and renamed Justerini & Brooks.

J.B. (play)

J.B. is a 1958 play written in free verse by American playwright and poet Archibald MacLeish and is a modern retelling of the story of the biblical figure Job — hence the title: J.B./Job. The play went through several incarnations before it was finally published. MacLeish began the work in 1953 as a one-act production but within three years had expanded it to a full three-act manuscript.

There are two versions of J.B. available: the original book, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and the script which MacLeish revised substantially for Broadway, published by Samuel French Inc.

Plot summary

The play opens in "a corner inside an enormous circus tent". Two vendors, Mr. Zuss (evoking the chief Greek god Zeus; zuss is also German for "sweet") and Nickles (i.e. "Old Nick," a folk name for the Devil) begin the play-within-a-play by assuming the roles of God and Satan, respectively. They overhear J.B., a wealthy New York banker, describe his prosperity as a just reward for his faithfulness to God. Scorning him, Nickles wagers that J.B. will curse God if his life is ruined. Nickles and Zuss then watch as J.B.'s children are killed and his property is ruined and the former millionaire is left to the streets. J.B. is then visited by three Comforters (representing History, Science, and Religion) who each offer a different explanation for his plight. J.B. declines to believe any of them, instead asking God himself to explain. Instead he encounters Zuss and Nickles. Nickles urges him to commit suicide in order to spite God; Zuss offers him his old life back if he will promise to obey God. J.B. rejects them both, and instead finds comfort in the person of his wife Sarah. The play ends with the two building a new life together.