DISCOVERY OF THE TRANSISTOR - THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT VOLUME OF THE PHYSICAL REVIEW

BARDEEN, J. (+) W. H. BRATTAIN (+) W. SHOCKLEY (+) W. L. PEARSON (+) TOMONAGA (+) G. GAMOW (+) R. P. FEYNMAN (+) J. SCHWINGER.

The transistor, a semi-conductor triode (+) Nature of the forward current in Germanium Point Contacts [BARDEEN, J. & BRATTAIN, W. H.] (+) Modulation of conductance of thin films of semi-conductors by surface charges [SHOCKLEY, W. & PEARSON, W. L.] (+) On infinite field reactions in quantum field theory [TOMONAGA, S.-I] (+) Origin of elements and the separation of galaxies [GAMOW, G.] (+) Relativistic cut-off for quantum electrodynamics [FEYNMAN, R. P.] (+) Quantum electrodynamics I. A covariant formulation [SCHWINGER, J.].

Lancaster, PA & New York, American Physical Society, 1948. Royal8vo. Bound in contemporary black full cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Nature", Vol. 74, 1948. Spine with a bit a wear and front hinge a bit loose, otherwise a fine and clean copy.

First printing of the single most important volume of The Physical Review containing an exceptional number of important papers - amongst other the first paper to describe the transistor: One of the most important inventions of the 20th Century which awarded them the Nobel Prize in physics in 1956.,

The three first titles are the short letters in Physical Review which first announced the invention of the transistor. The following year Bardeen and Brattain published the more comprehensive report "Physical Principles Involved in Transistor Action". This paper was simultaneously published, the same month, in The Bell System Technical Journal (Number 2 volume 28). In 1956 Bardeen and Brattain shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with William Shockley "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect". In 1972 Bardeen again received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in the development of the theory of superconductivity (BCS-theory), and thus became the only person, until this day, to receive the Nobel Prize more than once in the same field.

"The invention of the transistor would in time change the world by making possible the microchip and all the devices that followed from it, but the discovery ruined the spirit of the Bell Laboratories semiconductor group. Shockley, who had been uninvolved in the invention of the original transistor, stunned Bardeen and Brattain when he tried to patent the invention in his name, hoping to base it on his suggestion of the field-effect amplifier. Shockley's plan failed because the patent attorneys discovered that Julius E. Lilienfeld, a Polish-American inventor, had already patented the field-effect notion in 1930. Shockley further antagonized Brattain and Bardeen by preventing them from working on the consequences of their historic invention, a second transistor, known as the junction device, which could better be used commercially." (DSB)

The issue also contain two of the papers leading to Richard Feynman's 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics, (A Relativistic Cut-Off for Classical Electrodynamics & Relativistic Cut-Off for Quantum Electrodynamics) and the paper that led to Polykarp Kusch's 1955 Nobel Prize in Physics (The Magnetic Moment of the Electron)
Also containing Maria Goeppert-Mayer paper that led to her 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics (On Closed Shells in Nuclei), the seminal P. A. M. Dirac paper on magnetic monopoles (A theory of Magnetic Poles) and three important papers on The Big Bang Theory by George Gamow, Ralph Alpher and George Herman (The Origin of the Elements and the Separation of Galaxies & Thermonuclear Reactions in the Expanding Universe & On the Relative Abundance of the Elements & A Neutron-Capture Theory of the Formation and Relative Abundance of the Elements).

See Hook & Norman: Origins of Cyberspace, No. 450.

Order-nr.: 47051