
The Transistor, Part 1: Groping in the Dark - cfmcdonald
https://technicshistory.wordpress.com/2018/01/20/the-transistor-part-1-groping-in-the-dark/
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Animats
Yes, this is a classic story. Crystal diodes were known prior to WWII, and
produced in bulk during WWII for radar systems. That resulted in commercial
crystal growing technology. Bell Labs and Western Electric did much of that,
so the technology for making crystals with controlled properties was coming
along. That's the first step in the process of making transistors and ICs.

The first big technology that really required theory and heavy math was AC
power. That's what Tesla was noted for. DC you can do with ordinary
arithmetic, but AC rotary machine design requires calculus. That was a big
shock to engineers of the era. Edison never made that transition.

Up until the early 20th century, science and engineering didn't talk much.

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WalterBright
Edison was notably deficient in math. But he recognized this and hired
mathematicians to work for him.

Even Einstein got help with the math on general relativity.

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gdubs
Tensor calculus specifically, but Einstein was no slouch when it came to math.

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WalterBright
I had a crystal radio in the 60's. It was nothing more than an antenna, a
coil, headphones, and of course the crystal. I had fooled around with making
electromagnets and morse keys, and understood them. But the crystal completely
baffled me.

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ZenoArrow
I had one of those as a kid. The idea you could listen to the radio without
any local power source (mains or batteries) was pretty amazing.

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madengr
I built one, and it said “connect it to a pipe”. I had a piece of pipe in my
room, and it frustratingly did nothing. They never said “an earth connected
pipe.

Now I’m an RF engineer; go figure.

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WalterBright
I discovered that if you connected a long wire to the phono inputs on an
amplifier, you'd pick up the local AM stations.

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aaron-lebo
There's a pretty good PBS doc about Shockley and Noyce (mostly Noyce) called
_Silicon Valley_.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00BD7MBK6/ref=pd_cbs...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00BD7MBK6/ref=pd_cbs_318_2)

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madengr
Reading Tesla’s Colorado Springs Lab Notes, he spent a good deal of time
trying to develop an efficient RF rectifier/detector. So while he could
generate huge amounts of RF, he could not detect it well.

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ggm
I wish Robert Buderi's book on radar was available in e-print because it's
really good as an overview of the relationship of the war, O/R, technology and
specifically the transistor.

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searine
I love science history. Probably my favorite non-fiction topic to read.

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madengr
You’d probably like Invention and Technology magazine. It ceased publication
several years ago, but it was awesome. Great reading if you can find old
issues.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Heritage_of_Inventi...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Heritage_of_Invention_%26_Technology)

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nitrogen
It would be kind of fun to have a publishing company that would reprint and
send out curated old issues of classic magazines to the nostalgia seekers of
the world.

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cptaj
I really wish this was a podcast. I always digest my history in podcast form

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jsjohnst
While I respect those who feel different like you, personally I’m glad it’s
not. I retain significantly more knowledge from things I read vs things I
heard. To fully benefit from audio content, I have to dedicate 100% of my
focus to it otherwise I miss critical parts.

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dingo_bat
I'm like this and it makes me sad because podcasts are 100% useless for me.

