Introduction / Context:
The transistor replaced vacuum tubes and enabled compact, efficient, and reliable electronic devices. Pinpointing its origin helps structure the historical timeline that leads to integrated circuits, microprocessors, and modern computing.
Given Data / Assumptions:
- The year is 1947.
- We are identifying the organisation associated with the invention, not individual laureates.
- The setting is the early post-war research era in the United States.
Concept / Approach:
Bell Laboratories is credited with the transistor’s invention in 1947. The pioneering work involved demonstrating the point-contact transistor, followed soon by the junction transistor. This breakthrough laid the groundwork for semiconductor electronics, information processing, and the eventual PC revolution.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Check each organisation’s historical focus during the 1940s.Recognise Bell Labs as the research arm that produced fundamental communications and electronics discoveries.Associate 1947 with the first working transistor demonstration.Select 'Bell Laboratories' as the correct answer.
Verification / Alternative check:
Technology histories and Nobel Prize citations trace the invention to Bell Labs, aligning the 1947 date with subsequent rapid advances in semiconductor physics.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
IBM: A computing giant, but not credited with the 1947 transistor invention.MITS: Later personal computing company (Altair 8800 era), not 1940s research.Xerox: Known for later PARC innovations, not the transistor’s origin.
Common Pitfalls:
Conflating the invention site with later commercialisation or different labs famous for other breakthroughs (e.g., Xerox PARC for GUIs and Ethernet decades later).
Final Answer:
Bell Laboratories
Discussion & Comments