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1-Page Summary of The Idea Factory

Overview

Technology has advanced at an incredible rate in recent times. We have access to so many great devices, such as the personal computer, the smartphone and the internet.

When asked which company is responsible for the modern technological revolution, one would be forgiven for giving credit to companies like Google and Amazon. However, they are late to the party. The true innovator of today’s technology was Bell Labs, a research arm of AT&T. These key points will show you why Bell Labs deserves all the credit it gets and how innovative their scientists were.

Big Idea #1: Bell Labs was born from the early AT&T, which hired top scientists to improve telephone service.

Alexander Graham Bell patented the first working telephone in 1876. He then founded a company to market his invention, which later evolved into AT&T.

In the 1890s, Bell’s telephone patent expired and other companies could use the technology. AT&T resolved to compete with them by using science and research to provide better service to their customers.

In 1925, AT&T founded Bell Telephone Laboratories. One of the goals was to make phone service more reliable and cheaper. At that time, phones were rudimentary and did not have ringing tones or busy signals. A caller would just shout into a receiver until someone on the other end noticed! However, Theodore Vail’s vision for Bell Labs was to explore communication in its many forms through cables or radio waves with recorded sound or visual images.

Bell Labs hired top scientists and had a majority of employees who were graduates from the best universities in the United States.

Mervin Kelly was an exceptional physics student at the University of Chicago, and he went on to become a director of Bell Labs. His work in communications changed the industry.

Bell Labs became a hub for many brilliant scientists, some of whom even went on to win the Nobel Prize.

Big Idea #2: During World War II, Bell Labs focused on developing military technology, such as radar.

The Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II had a profound impact on Bell Labs. During the depression, Bell Labs needed to reduce employee hours but scientists still managed to study during non-working hours. With the outbreak of war in Europe, most of their work was focused on military applications.

Bell Labs was tasked with building a weapon that would use uranium. As a result, Bell Labs discovered how to create nuclear reactors and harness their power. However, the most significant contribution of Bell labs during World War II was radar technology. Radar could be used for both offensive (attack) and defensive (protection) purposes in military strategy as it helped detect incoming enemy aircrafts, submarines, guide gunfire and bombs accurately onto targets and land planes at night or in dense fog.

Bell Labs scientists were asked to further develop radar technology, and they did so. They created new instruments that could detect objects from far away.

Big Idea #3: The transistor, or crucial building block of all today’s electronic devices, was invented at Bell Labs.

Bell Labs realized that good communication between employees leads to innovation. They set up their offices so that scientists had to walk through the hallways and talk with each other, which encouraged them to exchange ideas.

This strategy was successful, as Bell Labs became a hotbed of innovation in the post-war decades. One major achievement came in the form of the transistor, invented by Bell Labs scientists in the 1940s. The first transistors were developed by physicists at Bell Labs, who used silicon to amplify an electrical signal.