What scientific theory do you think is cruical to the creation of the transistor in the first place?

Question

What scientific theory do you think is cruical to the creation of the transistor in the first place?

Answer 1

Im gunna go with the theory of electricity

Answer 2

I remember making a 'cats-whisker' radio.the important part of that was a little crystal of some substance(might have been germanium) which was tapped into via a thin wire(the cats-whisker) .To get good volume through the headphones it was necessary to find the best contact place on the crystal.The object was to allow current to flow only in one direction(process known as half wave rectification).without rectification the phones could not respond to the high speed current reverstion so no singing and no dancing.What this demonstrated was that some directions in semiconductor crystals of Ge and Si could conduct electricity IN ONLY ONE DIRECTION.It was one of the early spurs to the invention of transistors and complex computer chips.(time of cats-whiskers about from 1940,at a guess).SO physics of the solid state!band theory of solids.

Answer 3

http://www.pbs.org/transistor/science/ev...

Answer 4

I think it was necessity more than anything else. valved(tube) computers were huge and unreliable.

Answer 5

Resistance.

Answer 6

Simply quantum engineering.