Word: transistor
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...complete without the extraterrestrial antics of the Jetsons. I knew the position of each planet relative to the sun in addition to the names of all the early astronauts. The capstone of my childhood space career occurred one day in kindergarten, when Mrs. Isidore brought in a transistor radio so we could listen as the first space shuttle ascended into orbit...
Basic research often takes time to show up in practical uses. The transistor was invented in 1947 by scientists studying solid-state circuits but was only put into radios in the 1960s. Now, life without the transistor is unimaginable. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was discovered in the 1940s but was not used as a medical imaging device until the 1970s (now called magnetic resonance imaging). Now MRI provides a significant diagnosing device for doctors. Numerous applications can spring from single basic research discoveries, but those applications are not obvious before the research. Applied research usually takes basic research and puts...
...impregnated, by remote control or even after the donor's death, by the world's smartest physicist or most talented violinist or most accomplished adventurer? That isn't so preposterous as it may sound. A few years back, William Shockley, Nobel-prizewinning co-inventor of the transistor, attracted ridicule by making a deposit in a sperm bank that accepted donations only from men with high IQs. But with biological immortality as a lure, more of the world's most accomplished men--or, failing that, a bunch of rock stars and politicians--might be only too happy to sign...
...past four decades, Japan has been showing the world how to take technological innovation and turn it into gold. Examples abound: the transistor radio, the color television, the portable cassette player, the videocassette recorder. The basic technology in these products was invented elsewhere--the transistor and the vcr were born in the U.S.--but superior engineering expertise and marketing flair gave Japan clear dominance of the world of high tech...
Researchers in France have developed an electronic transistor that contains no metallic parts. Instead they used paper-printing technology to assemble very thin layers of plastic that mimic the properties of silicon chips. Because plastic is so much more flexible than metal, the devices could theoretically be used to create such futuristic items as video screens that roll up like window shades or bendable computers the size of credit cards...