FUN WITH MAPS – ISSUE 2023-122 DAILY FEATURE:

By Steve Kovacs (Introduction by Chuck Gibson)

LOVELAND, OH (June 30, 2023) – In today’s edition of Fun with Maps from Steve Kovacs, we celebrate the anniversary of a small invention that made a huge impact.

Smaller is better

Electrical signal modification and amplification via semiconductors.

Is that worth a Nobel Prize?  The Nobel Committee seemed to think so, awarding the Nobel Prize in Physics to three Americans – William Shockley, Walter Brattain and John Bardeen – working at Bell labs.

What they invented was the working transistor.

The much smaller and more reliable transistor soon replaced the bulky and somewhat unreliable vacuum tubes.   Portable radios soon followed and much more.

The invention of the transistor was officially announced 75 years ago today.

On a side note, Shockley is importantly responsible why silicon valley exists and why it is there, south of San Francisco, as he worked in the area later – in the 1950s and 1960s — to commercialize various transistors.

So, you expect a map of Silicon Valley or New Jersey, home to Bell Labs.  Well, not getting those.  You get to see a map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as one its sons, Julius Lilienfeld originally proposed the idea and basic physics for the transistor.  This McNally map shows the Empire and its parts from 1910.

Steve Kovacs and his wife Theresa reside in Loveland, Ohio where they raised their two children. He is a passionate collector of antique maps.

Visit his antique map boutique world-on-paper online. Watch for his daily feature Steve Kovacs: Fun with Maps here on Loveland Beacon.