William Shockley
American physicist, inventor, and eugenicist (1910–1989) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American inventor, physicist, and eugenicist. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for "their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".[1]
It has been suggested that Foundation for Research and Education on Eugenics and Dysgenics be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since May 2024. |
Partly as a result of Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s and 1960s, California's Silicon Valley became a hotbed of electronics innovation. He recruited brilliant employees, but quickly alienated them with his autocratic and erratic management; they left and founded major companies in the industry.[2]
In his later life, while a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University and afterward, Shockley became known as a racist and eugenicist.[3][4][5][6][7][8]