Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age
by Michael Riordan
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Description
It is hard to imagine any device more crucial to modern life than the microchip and the transistor from which it sprang. Every waking hour people of the world take their vast benefits for granted - in cellular phones, ATMs, wrist watches, calculators, computers, automobiles, radios, televisions, fax machines, copiers, stoplights, and thousands of other electronic devices. Without a doubt, the transistor is the most important artifact of the twentieth century and the "nerve cell" of our show more electronic age. Crystal Fire recounts the story of the transistor team at Bell Labs headed up by William Shockley who shared the Nobel Prize with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. While his colleagues went on to other research, Shockley grew increasingly obsessed with the new gadget. Eventually he formed his own firm - the first semiconductor company in what would become Silicon Valley, spawning hundreds of other businesses and a multi-billion-dollar industry. Above all, Crystal Fire is a tale of the human factors in technology - the pride and jealousies coupled with scientific and economic aspiration that led to the creation of modern microelectronics and ignited the greatest technological explosion in history. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I don't see how you can understand the latter half of the 20th century without knowing about the birth of the transistor, the engineering feat which gave us personal computers, smartphones, and so much more. This is a well-written account of the discovery. This is part of the great Sloan Technology Series.
The first third of this is all quantum physics ( finally made the connection that it's the Pauli principle that's keeping atoms from collasping, that's why it was neccessary )
The first third of this is all quantum physics ( finally made the connection that it's the Pauli principle that's keeping atoms from collasping, that's why it was neccessary )
Hoddeson, Lillian (Author)
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Books in the Bibliography of The Alchemy of Us by Ainissa Ramirez
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14 Works 347 Members
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Awards
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age
- Original publication date
- 1997
- People/Characters
- William Shockley; Walter Brattain; John Bardeen
- Important places
- Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Technology, History, Science & Nature, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 621.381 — Applied Science & Technology Engineering Applied physics Electronics & Computers Electronics, communications engineering Electronics
- LCC
- TK7809 .R56 — Technology Electrical engineering. Electronics. Nuclear engineering Electrical engineering. Electronics. Nuclear Electronics
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 158
- Popularity
- 206,566
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.70)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 2
