Walter Houser Brattain Walter Houser Brattain Walter Houser Brattain (; February 10, 1902 – October 13, 1987) was an American physicist at Bell Labs who, along with fellow scientists John Bardeen and William Shockley, invented the point-contact transistor in December 1947. They shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention. Brattain devoted much of his life to research on surface states. Walter Brattain was born in Xiamen, Fujian, China, to American parents Ross R. Brattain and Ottilie Houser Brattain. Ross R. Brattain was a teacher at the Ting-Wen Institute, a private school for Chinese boys. Both parents were graduates of Whitman
Claes Nobel Claes Nobel Claes Nobel (; ; born 1930), a native of Sweden, is grandson of Ludvig Nobel and grand nephew to Alfred Nobel, who established the Nobel Prizes. Founder of the National Society of High School Scholars, Nobel is an advocate of humanitarian and environmental causes, and was honored at the Artivist Film Festival in November 2007 for his work in these areas. He is also Chief Mentor to Cogent EMR Solutions, a company dedicated to research and development of Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) safety products and services. In 1974 he drafted The Nobel Laureates Declaration on the Survival of Mankind,