The cryotron files : the untold story of Dudley Buck Cold War computer scientist and microchip pioneer Dr. Dudley Allen Buck was a brilliant young scientist and MIT professor who developed or invented several pieces of now common technology most notably the cryotron an early form of the microchip. Thought to be able to guide a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles to their targets the cryotron attracted attention from around the world. Like his Nobel winning colleagues Buck might have benefited from his inventions had he not died from a mysterious sudden bout of pneumonia at the age of thirty two just weeks after a high profile group of Soviet scientists visited his lab on a tour of the US. Buck was not the only scientist to die that day; his colleague Dr. Ridenour chief scientist at Lockheed was also found dead from similar causes. Were their deaths linked Bucks lab books diaries correspondence research papers patent filings and other recently discovered papers reveal his extensive career in clandestine government work that took him around the globe and behind the Iron Curtain for agencies including the NSA putting him in contact with the Soviet Unions top computer scientists. Did Bucks pioneering work with microchips and his work for intelligence agencies make him a target of the KGB Armed with this research award winning journalist Iain Dey tells with compelling immediacy the story of Dudley Bucks life and groundbreaking work starting from his unconventional beginnings in California through his untimely death and beyond. The Cryotron Files is at once the gripping narrative history of America and its computer scientists during the Cold War and the dramatic personal story of rising MIT star Dudley Buck in the high stakes days of spies supercomputers and the space and nuclear races. Jacket