How Shockley shook the World

As illustrated by Dr Siddharth Mukherjee in his pathbreaking book ‘The Gene’, psychiatric problems are accompanied by genius; they come and exist together. Amongst others, he cites the example of the co-inventor of the bipolar junction transistor, Dr William Shockley who was known to be paranoid and aggressive at times.

The transistor was the starting point of miniaturisation in electronics: radio, TV, computers, vehicular and medical instrumentation and control etc, almost every thing that let loose a distinct advantage to humanity and which when used with discretion led to greater health and prosperity, of and in the earth.

The transistor was a semiconductor device which was developed both as an amplifier and a switch, opening up denser applications of both continuous time analog electronics and discrete time digital electronics.