Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science

From: Albert (albertwagner_at_cox.net)
Date: 02/17/05 

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:38:55 -0600

robert j. kolker wrote:
>
>
> Lester Zick wrote:
>
>>
>> Time, tide, and engineers wait for no man. Computers were made of
>> vacuum tubes before transistors. Apparently they can be made of Tinker
>> Toys. All engineers needed were the ideas of Turing and von Neumann.
>> They didn't stand around waiting for QM to decide what it had which it
>> still hasn't.
>
>
> That is not the issue. The invention of transistors required the quantum
> theory of solids.

No, Bob. The quantum theory of solids is only required for a
quantum theory explanation of transistors. Fortunately,
experimenters knew quite well how semiconductors behaved long
before quantum theory could explain the phenomenon.

You apparently only read posts directed at you so I'll repost:
=========================================
http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/belllabs_transistor1.html

Start of silicon

     It was in 1906 that the G.W. Pickard of Amesbury,
Massachusetts perfected the crystal detector and in November of
that year took out a patent for the use of silicon in detectors.
Arguably this was the start of the silicon revolution and it did
not take long before experimenters achieved amplification using
crystal devices, long before the term transistor was devised.

     Solid-state electronics were born even earlier, when
Ferdinand Braun invented a solid-state rectifier using a point
contact based on lead sulphide in 1874. But it's to Pickard that
the credit goes for discovering that the point contact between a
fine metallic wire (the so-called 'cat's whisker') and the
surface of certain crystalline materials (notably silicon) could
rectify and demodulate high-frequency alternating currents, such
as those produced by radio waves in a receiving antenna (what
Pickard called a 'wave-interceptor'). His crystal detector
(point-contact rectifier) was the basis of countless crystal set
radio receivers, a form of radio receiver that was popular until
the crystal detector was superseded by the thermionic triode valve.

     By its nature the crystal rectifier was a passive device,
with no signal gain. But radio historian Lawrence A. Pizzella
WR6K notes anecdotal stories of shipboard wireless operators in
the second decade of the 20th century achieving amplification
using a silicon carbide (carborundum) crystal and two cat's
whiskers. He cites a taped interview made in 1975 with Russell
Ohl at his home in Vista, California in which claims of signal
gain were made. This is an excerpt from Ohl's testimony:

     He gave me a copy that he had of...I think it was The
Electrician. It was a British magazine, one of these big-paged
things, you know. In it was a translation from a Russian paper in
which they had used carborundum with two contacts and a battery
supplying one of the contacts and had gotten a power gain of ten
times. And this was way back in the 1910s, so the fact that you
could get a power gain had been known, but it was never put on a
controlled basis. I knew about it because an operator of the
Signal Corps back in 1919 had told me that some of the operators
used carborundum as oscillators for receiving. When I had seen
this article that Curtis gave me, I was not astounded because I
had known about this before I ever saw the article. I had heard
about it. I knew a former first sergeant in the Signal Corps who
had lived in, the boarding house that I lived and he was an
expert radio operator. He told me a great deal about the use of
crystal detectors on ships. He told me that professional
operators carried two crystal detectors with them. One of them
was made of carborundum them and one of them was something like
galena or something of that sort. He said the carborundum was
used for two purposes. They used it in the harbour when they were
close to a transmitter to prevent burnout. They also used it at
long distances with two points. One point was excited with a
battery and they were able to get long wave oscillations out of
it and in that we were able to be in long wave telegraph stations.

     Ohl, it should be noted, was the man who invented the
silicon solar cell in 1941 and discovered during World War II
that semiconductors could be doped with small amounts of
impurities to create useful new properties. Born in 1889, he was
bitten by the radio bug at the age of 16 and devoted much of his
life to making simple radio receivers employing semiconductors.
His accidental discovery of the P-N barrier in his work at Bell
Telephone Laboratories led to the development of solar cells.

Oscillating crystals

     A fascinating letter to Wireless World in May 1981 under
this title came from Dr Harry E. Stockman of Sercolab (Arlington,
Mass.) Then 76 years old, he had lived through the era under
discussion and provided a valuable summary of 'prior art'
preceding the re-invention of the transistor. His letter had been
triggered by a 'Sixty Years Ago' item in the same periodical)
recalling an article by W. T. Ditcham on crystal oscillation in
its May 1920 issue.

     This effect, he stated, was discovered by Dr W. H. Eccles in
1910, and remarked: "It is hard to realize that it took about ten
years for practical active crystal-diode circuits to appear, in
spite of Ditcham's reminder--circuits that included both RF and
AF amplification. The last one, at the time, was totally unknown
to most 'affectionados', one of them being the author of this
letter. Most of the credit for creating practical devices [of
this kind] goes to O. V. Lossev of Russia, whether or not he knew
of Eccles' pioneer work a decade earlier. He should have known
about it; one has the right to expect that he as a qualified
scientist was familiar with the world's scientific literature."

     Clarification comes from Lawrence Pizzella, who explains how
these experimenters created successful amplification techniques
using mineral crystal devices. Lossev, he says, used zincite and
a steel cat's whisker with bias to make an oscillator and even a
low-power transmitter in the early 1920s. This was reported in
considerable detail in the September 1924 issue of Radio News and
in the 1st and 8th October 1924 issues of Wireless World. Hugo
Gernsback, the editor of Radio News, named this the 'Crystodyne'
and predicted that crystals would someday replace valves in
electronics. All details needed to duplicate these circuits to
make a tunnel diode oscillator are in these articles. A German
book by Eugen Nesper described an oscillating detector circuit
in 1925 too, using zincite material and a bias voltage of 8 to
14 volts.

     With so much information in print it's inconceivable that
the Bell Labs team were unaware of these techniques. But in any
case Pizzella says Russell Ohl showed William Shockley his radio
using crystal amplifiers several years before the transistor's
alleged invention in 1947. Shockley is also quoted (in Crystal
Fire by Riordan and Hoddeson) as saying that seeing Ohl's radio
convinced him that an amplifying crystal could be made.
================================================== 

-- 
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the 
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally 
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
     -- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... His crystal detector ... radio receivers, a form of radio receiver that was popular until ... 'Crystodyne' and *predicted that crystals would someday replace ... oscillating detector circuit in *1925* too, ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... His crystal detector ... radio receivers, a form of radio receiver that was popular until ... 'Crystodyne' and *predicted that crystals would someday replace ... oscillating detector circuit in *1925* too, ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... His crystal detector ... radio receivers, a form of radio receiver that was popular until ... 'Crystodyne' and *predicted that crystals would someday replace ... oscillating detector circuit in *1925* too, ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: IMTS vs MTS was 1965 mobile phone on "Get Smart" [telecom]
    ... radio required a crystal for each channel it could use (certain ... Military and commercial transmitters have used crystals since the ...
    (comp.dcom.telecom)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... The invention of transistors required the quantum ... radio receivers, a form of radio receiver that was popular until ... Oscillating crystals ... book by Eugen Nesper described an oscillating detector circuit ...
    (sci.cognitive)