Eye Current

It's A Birthday

This month the lowly transistor turns 60. I don't know if there is another moment in the past century that has become so significant. Eric Berger reflects;

the transistor turns 60. Has anything been as transformative?

Born in the now defunct Bell labs, one has to to wonder if these folks really understood how significant their new discovery was.

IN DECEMBER 1947, Bells Labs scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain first revealed what would come to be known as the transistor.

They held the future in their hands - a device that would replace vacuum tubes in 10 years, and 60 years later has transformed electronics.

Inventions change things; great inventions change everything.

It was a different time. Bell labs developed the technologies and the rest of the world ran with it.
Bell labs is gone, but their legacy is built into every radio computer and piece of electronics we make. I have to wonder what the one great invention of this century will be.

posted by Ray L. @ 10:28 AM