The story
Discovered and first measured by John B. Johnson at Bell Labs in 1926. His colleague Harry Nyquist provided an explanation of the results.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Johnson-Nyquist noise
Today it means: The electronic noise generated by the thermal agitation of the charge carriers (usually the electrons) inside an electrical conductor at equilibrium, which happens regardless of any applied voltage. Full definition →