Jason Crawford

We could invent some interesting electronic components.

They didn't know exactly what they were going to invent.

They weren't sure that they could make a transistor and that wasn't the only thing they were trying to make.

But a transistor was one of a number of things they thought could be possible.

Shockley in particular was optimistic about being able to create a solid state.

They didn't call it the transistor yet at that point.

They called it the solid state amplifier was the theoretical thing that they were trying to create.

And there were other solid state things they might thought they would be able to create, but they were experimenting.

They were trying different things.

And one of the things they tried to do was, so they tried various ways to create a solid state amplifier.

And what was remarkable to me about this process was how they actually shuttled back and forth between science and invention.

They kept going back to the drawing board and then back to the workbench multiple times.

So they started with the theory of semiconductors, right?

The basic theory that had been worked out by physics.

Again, you need that epistemic base.

You need those concepts.

If it weren't for the concept of semiconductors, Bell Labs would never have created a semiconductor research group.

So then on the basis of the theory that was known, they tried a couple of different ways to do it.

One of the ways that they tried was something called the field effect amplifier.

That was a design they came up with.