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William Shockley (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989)

 

Recommended for Preparatory Grades

William Shockley was an American inventor and physicist. In 1956, he was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics. 

Early Life and Education

William Shockley was born in London, England on 13th February 1910. His father was a mining engineer. He studied Science at the California Institute of Technology in 1913. Later he studied at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At MIT he submitted a thesis on the energy band structure of sodium chloride.

Professional Life

In 1936 he joined Bell Telephone Laboratories.  He continued to work at Bell until 1955. Later he joined Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory as a Director. At Shockley Labs, his focus area was research development and production of the new transistor and other semiconductor devices.  In 1963 at Stanford University, he was named first Alexander M. Poniatoff Professor of Engineering Science.

He was the Research Directory of the Anti-submarine Warfare Operations Research Group and later he served as Expert Consultant in the office of the Secretary for War.

Research and Awards

William Shockley’s research on been focused on energy bands in solids,  semiconductors, various topics in transistor physics and research on the statistics of salary and individual productivity in research laboratories.

In 1946 he received the Medal for Merit for his work with the War Department. In 1952 he was awarded the Morris Liebmann Memorial Prize. After receiving the Oliver E. Buckley Solid State Physics Prize and the Cyrus B. Comstock Award, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956. The Nobel Prize was jointly awarded to him and two of his colleagues at the Bell Telephone Laboratories.

William Shockley has written for numerous scientific and technical journals. In addition, he has taken out more than 50 patents for his inventions.

 

Watch this 1969 interview of William Shockley. Credit for the video goes to Youtube User->”craigaddison” and “Palo Alto Historical Association”.

 

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