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coming from Hawaii. Five thousand miles away.”
    •  •  •
    Michael Pupin, Howard Armstrong’s self-appointed mentor, often felt like a fretting mother hen. Armstrong could be strong-willed, even obstinate, and he often showed little regard for his own safety, either physically or legally. But Armstrong was also, hands down, the mostbrilliant student he’d ever taught—maybe the most gifted and principled man he’d ever met . Given that Pupin had worked with the greatest names of his day, that was saying a lot.
    “Howard?”
    Armstrong didn’t answer. He was working away in his corner of the lab at Columbia, in the basement below Philosophy Hall, up to the elbows in a new receiver he’d spent months perfecting.
    “There’s a little Christmas party tonight, Howard. Some of the students were asking if you’d come.”
    “Busy,” Armstrong said.
    “Howard, you told me you finished your patent applications, and I’d like to review them now.”
    “On the table, over there.”
    As Pupin waded through the legalese he identified a problem almost immediately.
    “This is incomplete,” he said.
    “Then talk to the paper pushers,” Armstrong replied. “I’ve spent too much energy on that mumbo jumbo already.”
    “Too much energy? Howard, you’re a year behind in completing this filing. You have to protect yourself. This is important—”
    “No,” Armstrong said, “ this is important, this work right here in front of me.”
    “This application describes a patent for a radio receiving system.”
    “Yes—”
    “But that’s only a small part of it,” Pupin continued. “You’ve shown me that your regenerative system can actually modulate a signal, and when you push it into oscillation, it becomes a transmitter as well. One unit that can both send and receive, clear enough for voice and even music.”
    “I haven’t had time to perfect all that yet.”
    “Perfection be damned, it’s the heart of the invention!” Pupin said. “With this idea the guts of a radio transmitter can be shrunk from the size of a closet down to a box I can carry in my hands.”
    “When it’s ready, I’ll announce it.”
    “You have a neighbor in Yonkers who’s a patent attorney, and a verygood one. He’s of national renown. Why haven’t you asked him for his help?”
    “I don’t trust lawyers.”
    “Howard, listen to me. That Audion tube in your circuit is the work of a dangerous man—”
    “Dangerous?” Armstrong laughed. “Lee de Forest? I’ve heard the man speak at the Institute of Radio Engineers. He doesn’t even know how his tube works.”
    “It doesn’t matter if he knows how it works, it only matters what a judge and jury will believe.” Pupin came closer, and sat by Armstrong’s side. “I know for a fact that he pickpocketed the work of Reginald Fessenden, and then he tied him up in court for years. And de Forest won. Then he sued John Fleming, the man who invented the Fleming valve, the very basis of the Audion, and he won again. He shouldn’t have won, but he did. De Forest seems to thrive on legal wrangling, and I’ve heard it said that you’re the next name on his blacklist. You have too much to offer to waste your life in litigation. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
    “It won’t happen to me,” Armstrong said. “Yes, my work incorporates the Audion. Does that mean de Forest invented regeneration? Could the caveman who first chipped out a stone wheel claim to be the father of the Model T Ford? It’s absurd.”
    Absurd, yes, Pupin thought. But there were so few true geniuses to be found in the pages of history, and there has never been a shortage of opportunists and predators. Armstrong was a young man of great integrity, and such men can make the fatal mistake of assuming integrity in others.
    He wanted to say more, but he knew that at some point the teacher must let the student venture forth from the safety of the nest.
    “Don’t work too hard tonight, Howard,” he