Poor old Bill Shockley - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2025, 05:46:59 pm
content: This is not some well-researched essay; that would be boring; it's almost all from mind and memory. This way, all my errors can be exposed and corrected -much more interesting.Bill Shockley was a genius; that's why he was in charge of the research team that discovered the transistor. He actually developed the transistor to a practical form.But his personality flaws were his downfall. He was a bit of a control freak. When his team created a working transistor, he frantically worked to get ahead of them, and claim most of the credit. When photos were being taken for the Nobel Prize, he is said to have shoved the others aside, so he could be the prominent one in the photo. Years later, his colleagues, Brittain and Bardeen, being forgiving types, apparently forgave him and all was well again.But his troubles didn't end there. He moved to what would become Silicon Valley to be near his mother, and founded a semiconductor manufacturing plant, but his employees didn't like him and left as the "Traitorous Eight" to found Fairchild Semiconductor, and eventually Intel.If he had just put a little more work into self-development, there's no telling how much more likeable and famous he might have been.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2025, 05:52:55 pm
content: Yes, he was not well-liked by his colleagues.Late in life, things got worse: seehttps://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/william-shockley/

author: krish2487
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2025, 08:55:39 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on April 11, 2025, 05:46:59 pmThat pretty much sums up every dictator, eugenicist, warmonger, fascist, truant that has ever existed... atleast in the last couple of centuries...Dont get me wrong, he is to be lauded for his scientific achievements, but dont downplay his personal shortcomings to highlight his achievements.He is, afterall, a man.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2025, 08:59:11 pm
content: To be fair, even Albert Einstein was not a saint in his personal life.In my career, I was fortunate to meet two Nobel laureates (in physics), both before their prizes were announced.As persons, I consider them to be not only knowledgeable, but wise and "nature's gentlemen" in their personal relationships.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2025, 09:26:19 pm
content: Sounds like he was quite a nasty man, he happened to be smart, but just because he was smart doesn't mean we have to respect him.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2025, 09:58:20 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on April 11, 2025, 05:52:55 pm"In retaliation against his critics’ accusations of racism and sympathy for Nazi ideology"sounds familiar...

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2025, 10:35:38 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on April 11, 2025, 08:59:11 pmWould one of those happen to be Arno Penzias?

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2025, 12:43:10 am
content: why do I think he was having cocktails before the photo shoot, whenever you hear of shoving at some public event it has to do with drinking lol1956. Did they even know that you need to have some horderves back then?and its totally normal that a research director can't run a company because they have to do factory things. I think all those people had their fair share of glory and I don't feel like picking through it to try to judge them, like we will come to some accurate conclusion 70 years laterFairchild had so much success some academic conventions hardly matter. They got like pre-gutting defense contracts and were basically like 'made' by the government at that point.. this made nobel prize money look like a coupon for a frozen pizza. And I have a feeling this money was basically used by Shockley to make the company, give his men titles, which then let them quit and appear respectable, since they held corporate positions at that point in addition to being on some research team.Also I heard this general thing about Hollywood actors brawling, that old sets had some ridiculous lighting on them, like arc lamps etc, and this lead to generally aggressive behavior to those that had to be irradiated for photography lol. They had something akin to a nuclear flash going to get those old films and ineffective filters to get decent quality film, so the sets were plagued by alcohol and other stuff to raise endurance.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2025, 12:50:53 am
content: "Poor old Bill Shockley"?Feh; guy was just a racist SOB from everything I've read. "Genius" doesn't make up for that.

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2025, 02:17:34 am
content: Eugenicist Shockley would felt home in today's environment of WEF Schwab, Gates, Atlantic Council, CFR, Club of Rome, New World Order, Greater Israel, etc.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2025, 05:48:46 am
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on April 11, 2025, 10:35:38 pmNo, I never met him.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2025, 06:02:26 am
content: Quote from: MT on April 12, 2025, 02:17:34 amit was actually a popular concept in California up to the late middle of the century AFAIK, somehow. They really turned around lolI have a feeling more then a handful of people in SV had interests in that sort of thing. I sometimes wonder if that's why we have 'generations' of transistors and semiconductor parts. I always thought it had something to do with the farmers being able to improve their crops (grapes) around there by selective breeding and whatnot. I think they learned the hard way about blight spreading in genetically uniform stuff though. I think it is interesting how electronics parts seem to be like advertised/explained with biology related terminology, moreso then other engineering things. Life cycle, family, generation, evolution, etc being applied to essentially electron valves.