AMAZING 1999 Video on the Invention of the Transistor at “Hell’s Bells Laboratory”

Thanks to Armand WA1UQO for alerting me to this. I really liked the book — “Crystal Fire” — that this 1999 video is loosely based on. I’m also a fan of the narrator, Ira Flatow, whose melodious voice is heard each week on NPR’s excellent “Science Friday” radio show.

A few observations and thoughts on the video:

— I liked the irreverant Calypso song “Hell’s Bells Laboratory.” It looks like those folks had a lot of fun. And wow, Shockly’s secretary was named Betty Sparks. TRGHS.

— I have the same big Variac on my bench. And I have one of those “third hand” devices.

— I’d like to build my own replica of the point contact device with the triangular piece of lucite and the gold foil.

— While Shockley seems to be the real bad guy in this story (he seems to have all the bad characteristics of David Sarnoff, Lee DeForest, and Steve Jobs), I liked the his use of “physical intuition” to understand devices and the problems they were meant to solve.

— The image of the two Japanese founders of Sony working in the late 1940’s in a bombed out department store was very powerful.

— Although I came on the scence a bit later, I WAS one of those kids who used a transistor radio and an earphone to surreptitiously listen to rock-and-roll music.

— “More transistors are made each year than raindrops fall on California.” Hmmm….

More info here: http://www.pbs.org/transistor/
Extra interviews: http://www.pbs.org/transistor/tv/index.html