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Zusammenfassung von The Idea Factory

Name: The Idea Factory
Rating: 4.4 (31 reviews)
Author: Jon Gertner

Jon Gertner

Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation

4.4 (31 Bewertungen)

17 Min.

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The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner recounts the history of Bell Labs, where remarkable scientists and engineers devised new technologies that transformed society. It uncovers the role of curiosity, collaboration, and creativity in achieving groundbreaking innovation.

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What’s in it for me? Learn about Bell Labs, the source of most of today’s technological innovations.

There is little doubt that we are living in the golden age of technology. We have impressive access to so many life-changing devices: the personal computer, the smartphone and the internet.

When asked which person or company is responsible for coming up with these innovations, one would be forgiven for giving credit to modern-day giants like Google or Amazon.

Yet these companies are really late to the scene. They’ve reaped the benefits of technological innovation, rather than helped create it. The true birthplace of the tech revolution was Bell Labs, a research arm of telephony monopoly AT&T.

These blinks will show you just how talented and creative the teams at Bell Labs were, and why we all share a great debt to their thirst for scientific knowledge and discovery.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how Bell Labs created the perfect environment for innovation;
what the connection is between satellites and solar panels; and
why scientists work best when deadlines aren’t a stress.

Bell Labs was born from the early AT&T, which hired top scientists to improve telephone service.

Alexander Graham Bell patented the first working telephone in 1876. Looking to capitalize on his groundbreaking invention, Bell founded the Bell Telephone Company, which later evolved into the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, or AT&T.

In the 1890s, however, Bell’s telephone patent expired, opening the door for other companies to take advantage of the technology. To remain competitive, AT&T resolved to use the power of science and research to provide better service to its customers.

This is how, in 1925, AT&T founded Bell Telephone Laboratories.

One of the goals of the labs was to make phone service more reliable, and cheaper. At the time, the telephone was still a rudimentary technology. Phones did not ring; dial tones and busy signals had yet to be invented. A caller would shout into a receiver until someone on the other end noticed!

Yet Bell Labs’s overarching focus was to investigate communication in its many forms, whether through a cable or over a radio wave, with recorded sound or using visual images. AT&T president Theodore Vail was the driving force behind this vision, encouraging teams to explore advances in physics and chemistry that might transform the way people communicate.

Bell Labs hired top scientists, and a majority of its employees were graduates of the leading universities in the United States, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and the California Institute of Technology.

Mervin Kelly, for example, was one of the most gifted physics students at the University of Chicago before coming to Bell Labs. In 1951 he was named director of the labs, and his work was pivotal in changing the communications industry.

Bell Labs became an intellectual hub for many eminent scientists, some of whom even went on to win the Nobel Prize.

During World War II, Bell Labs focused on developing military technology, such as radar.

The struggles and catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century left a mark on Bell Labs.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, for example, Bell Labs management needed to reduce employee working hours. Nevertheless, the young scientists made the best of the situation and used non-working hours to participate in study groups and pore over scientific textbooks.

The transistor, or crucial building block of all today’s electronic devices, was invented at Bell Labs.

Bell Labs early on realized that good employee communication leads to innovation. Employee offices and the labs were located in different areas, so that scientists had to walk between the two. The idea was that when scientists crossed paths, they could chat and exchange ideas.

This strategy worked, as the Labs were a hotbed of groundbreaking innovation in the post-war decades. One major achievement came in the form of the transistor, invented by Labs scientists in the 1940s.

Bell Labs mathematician Claude Shannon was the great mind behind information theory.

When the transistor was unveiled publicly in 1948, its importance and potential wasn’t immediately grasped on a grand scale. Yet there was one person who got it: Bell Labs mathematician Claude Shannon.

In the mid-1940s, Bell Labs technicians began experimenting with more efficient methods for transmitting telephone calls. One idea that seemed promising was a method known as pulse code modulation, or PCM.

Bell Labs not only helped build the first satellite, but also figured out how to power it with the sun.

Since the invention of the telephone, engineers dreamed of the next big communications step, allowing a person in North America to call family in Europe. Yet this seemed a Herculean task, considering the thousands of miles of cable required to cross the Atlantic – and even then, it just wasn’t possible to transmit signals over such a distance of cable.

It wasn’t until the 1950s when overseas telephony became possible – and with it a new invention called satellite technology. Of course it was Bell Labs scientists who developed one of the first communications satellites.

Bell Labs invented many other visionary products, but endured a fair share of failures as well.

The transistor and the radio. Solar cells and communication satellites. All of these technologies originated at Bell Labs, and each have completely revolutionized the modern world. Yet there was still more to come.

In the 1960s, Bell Labs scientists began research on mobile telephony – the working or use of mobile telephones. There were two problems they had to solve: First, there were few available wireless frequencies, meaning only a few calls could be placed simultaneously. Second, it wasn’t clear how a caller could move around without a call disconnecting.

Bell Labs was a force for innovation, yet was fueled by AT&T’s lucrative telecommunications monopoly.

What exactly is innovation? An idea that strikes a lone inventor in a moment of inspiration?

Actually, innovation tends to be more of a convergence of ideas over the course of time, whether months or even decades, as groups of people carefully consider various questions.

Bell Labs shuttered its operations in 2006. Yet few tech giants have really followed in its footsteps.

By the 1970s, the political and social acceptance of AT&T’s telecommunication monopoly began to wane.

The US Justice Department headed up a lawsuit that demanded AT&T be divided into smaller, competitive companies. In 1984, AT&T was finally forced to let go of its local phone company holdings, which then became independent corporations.

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Worum geht es in The Idea Factory?

The Idea Factory (2012) charts the influence of Bell Labs, the research arm of telephony monopolist AT&T. This innovative laboratory, established in the 1920s, was the source of dozens, if not hundreds, of technological innovations, effectively ushering in our modern digital age.

Bestes Zitat aus The Idea Factory

New employees at Bell Labs were asked to sell the rights to their future patents – for a symbolic sum of one dollar. None ever refused.

—Jon Gertner

Wer The Idea Factory lesen sollte

People curious about the history of modern technology
Entrepreneurs or business leaders wanting to encourage innovation
Employees of tech giants such as Google, Apple or Microsoft

Über den Autor

Journalist and author Jon Gertner writes for the New York Times Magazine and edits for Fast Company. He grew up just around the corner from Bell Labs in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.

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Technologie & Zukunft Geschichte

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