Episode Details

Story 1: Today marks the 75th anniversary of the first successful test of the transistor

• On this day, December 16, in 1947, scientists at Bell Labs conducted the first successful test of their semiconductor amplifier, the transistor.

• Over time, the transistor totally revolutionized the field of electronics, and paved the way for all the electronic devices in our lives today.

• As one of the most important building blocks of modern electronics, many historians contend it stands as one of the most important scientific inventions in world history.

• But first, what is a transistor?

• In the most fundamental terms, a transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power.

• Another definition is a transistor is a semiconductor device for amplifying, controlling, and generating electrical signals. Transistors are the active components of integrated circuits, or “microchips,” which often contain billions of these minuscule devices etched into their shiny surfaces.

• In its role as a switch, the transistor either prevents or allows current to flow through.

• Here’s what motivated the researchers at Bell Labs to create the transistor 75 years ago:

• An amazing team of scientists at Bell Labs, most notably John Bardeen and Walter Brattain working under William Shockley, wanted to replace the unreliable and hot vacuum tubes [as well as slow electromechanical relays] used in long-distance telephone service equipment with something much more reliable and cost effective.

• The ideal substitute they created to replace vacuum tubes used to amplify weak electrical signals and produce audible sounds was a highly reliable solid-state transistor which offered dramatically smaller size and significantly less power consumption.

• Although today we’re celebrating the first successful test of the transistor, but the team demonstrated the discovery a week later on December 23, often considered the date the transistor was invented.

• In terms of sharing the news with the world officially, it was not until June 30, 1948, at a press conference that Bell Labs publicly announced their invention.
  • At the event a spokesman for the Labs claimed that “it may have far-reaching significance in electronics and electrical communication.”

• Nine years later, Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for the first transistor.

• The first commercial applications for transistors were for hearing aids and “pocket” radios in the 1950s.

• In 1959 scientists

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