Comment by cambalache | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cambalache | Hacker News Reader

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> This article attributes the transistor to Shockley, but this is incorrect.

The article does not claim such thing. John writes

" After many further developments, in 1948 the physicist William Schockley patented transistors that use both holes and electrons to form a kind of switch. "

Which it is correct as you can easily check here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2569347

This not the case of a PHB robbing all the limelight from the engineers. Shockley was kinda of an asshole and had a big ego but he was a great scientist. And the junction transistor he individually designed and patented (see above) went on to be more successful than the point-contact transistor developed by Brattain and Bardeen. The Nobel prize was fairly awarded to the three of them.

John Bardeen is one of the greatest physicists of all time. He is the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in physics.

Shockley may have been a talented scientist, but he did not invent the transistor, and tried to steal (not share in, but steal) the credit from the people who did.

Newton was a jerk, but he invented modern physics. Shockley was also a jerk, but that doesn't mean he invented the transistor.

Why was Newton a jerk?

> kinda an asshole

“ My research leads me inescapably to the opinion that the major cause of the American Negro's intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin and, thus, not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in the environment.”

Shockley was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 1982 United States Senate election in California. He ran on a single-issue platform of highlighting the "dysgenic threat"

Shockley's name was not on any of these patent applications. This angered Shockley, who thought his name should also be on the patents because the work was based on his field effect idea. He even made efforts to have the patent written only in his name, and told Bardeen and Brattain of his intentions.

Some context for the kinda. I’m not impressed much by a guy who can crank out papers and be important in post-WW2 U.S. I have no idea what qualifies as great scientist here. Seems more like you have some “scientist’s legacy ruined by him being a bit of a jerk” angle.

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