Alcatel-Lucent 1947, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley of Bell Labs invented the transistor. In 1956, they received a Nobel Prize for their invention. The transistor led to an electronics revolution during the post-war boom. The transition from vacuum tubes to transistors enabled all technologies to be built on a smaller scale and use less electricity. Items that before required large dedicated spaces, could now fit into a home or even on a kitchen counter. In 1954, Gerald Pearson, Darryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller invented the solar cell. Telstar, the first active communications satellite also developed by Bell Labs and launched
Ig Nobel Prize Ig Nobel Prize The Ig Nobel Prize ( ) is a parody of the Nobel Prize awarded every autumn to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. Since 1991, the Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The name of the award is a pun on the word "ignoble," which means "characterized by baseness, lowness, or meanness," and is satirical social criticism that identifies "absurd" research, although, occasionally, such research has succeeded in yielding useful knowledge. Organized by the scientific humor magazine, the "Annals of Improbable