Scientist: William Shockley Without a Man Whom

¶ … scientist: William Shockley Without a man whom you have probably never heard of, writing this report on a computer would not be possible. The name of William Shockley is not as famous as the names of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or even the founders of Google. But Shockley is one of the inventors of the transistor, and without the transistor, most of the technology we take for granted today would not exist. Before transistors, vacuum tubes were used as the main form of communications technology.

Vacuum tubes "could amplify signals…on telephone lines as they were transferred across the country from one switch box to another…It allowed the signal to be amplified regularly along the line, meaning that a telephone conversation could go on across any distance as long as there were amplifiers along the way" ("Transistorized," PBS, 1999).

But "it wasn't a very efficient technology, and [it] required a lot of tubes and bulbs and heat…In fact, the term bug was coined when moths or other insects would light on the tubes and blow them out" (Gaudin 2007: 1). Transistors were also used in radios. Before transistor radios, the vacuum tubes had to be turned on and off manually, and the radio had to be allowed to warm up before a family could listen. Old radios were large and bulky.

But a transistor radio can be turned on and off with a flick of a switch and carried in the palm of someone's hand (Gaudin 2007: 2). Shockley was born in England to American parents on February 13, 1911. They returned to America soon afterwards. Shockley got his undergraduate degree at the California Institute of Technology and his PhD at MIT. He then began to work at Bell Labs, which was then the premier technology firm in the world (Bellis 2012).

With John Bardeen and Walter Braittain, the three scientists created the first germanium transistor for Bell Labs. Bell Labs wanted a more efficient way to operate its phone lines (Rubin 2012). Germanium is an element that when 'doped' "with small amounts of arsenic, gallium, indium, antimony or phosphorus" can become a semiconductor, or weak conductor ("The element germanium," It's elemental, 2012; "How do transistors work," Curiosity, 2012).

Depending on what was used to 'dope' the germanium, the semiconductor can either let electrons into the semiconductor or out of it ("How do transistors work," Curiosity, 2012). Today, germanium is still used to make transistors but it has the disadvantage of being very expensive. The first transistor was created in 1947. It was about the size of a matchbox (Gaudin 2007). Shockley and the other two scientists he worked with on the transistor received the Physics Nobel Prize in 1956 (Bellis 2012).

After creating the germanium transistor, Shockley began work on creating a silicon transistor. Germanium transistors were still expensive and impractical, because geranium is a rare element (Bellis 2012). In contrast, silicon is easily manufactured. "William Shockley began the R&D at his laboratory to invent a silicon transistor; however, he abandoned the project. Several of his employees abandoned Shockley and formed their own company Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation where the silicon-based transistor was invented" (Bellis 2012).

Despite his brilliance, Shockley was a very difficult man to work for, and even made his employees all take polygraph (lie detector) tests because of his paranoia about secrecy. Despite the fact that few of his colleagues had nice things to say about Shockley as a man, his invention is perhaps the most important creation of the 20th century.

"Transistors played a pivotal role in the advancement of electronics - their small size, low heat generation, high reliability, and small power requirements made possible the miniaturization of complex circuitry such as required by computers" (Rubin 2012). The transistor has been improved more quickly than any other form of technology, and without the transistor today's PCs, mobile phones, Walkmans to iPods would not exist. However, the end of William Shockley was much less happy than the success of his great invention. Shockley died of prostate cancer on August 12, 1989.

Although a professor at Stanford University, he had become associated with controversial theories about IQ and genetics before his death. Regardless of his personality, the legacy of his invention lives on. William Shockley (February 13, 1910- August 12, 1989) William Shockley, along with John Bardeen and Walter Braittain invented the transistor at Bell Labs in 1947. Without the transistor, none of these things would be possible: Before transistors, large vacuum tubes were need to power communications equipment like phones and radios.

The first transistor, made from the element germanium, was as small as a matchbox. Germanium was used as a semiconductor of electrons. Later, germanium was replaced with the cheaper element silicon, which is why the area where most of the computer companies in the world are.