I find it odd that they built a working model first time out... No failures. Measure twice cut once? or something else altogether? One of the most important discoveries of our times and they did it the first time out the door.

Didn't you know? We got the transistor from reverse engineering the Roswell crash.

[I want to ask you something ... do you believe that we (mankind) will fly to other solar systems using conventional transistors? Or best scientists tell us that we have 50 year or less of life left in even radical semiconductor solutions. More likely, 15 years. So, given that ... and given that it takes tremendous amounts of energy to hurl us to the speeds where solar-system to solar-system travel, even proxima centauri 4.3 light years away, do you really think we'll still be using something like tranistors?

If the Roswell crash did happen, and if people like Bob Lazar are to be believed, then the reality is the entire ship was a single crystal. That is technology so far beyond anything we have that the likelihood of us (mankind) obtaining the tranistor from that ship, is just off the wall ludicrous. They would've had quantum computers, optical computers, and things we haven't even dreamt of yet.

No sir, I cannot help but disagree with your assessment here. Roswell may or may not have happened. But I would find it almost impossible to believe that we obtained that first clunky, lamp-sized transistor from anything we found a Roswell. Even today's 45nm is crude, crude, crude, compared to what we're headed toward at 32nm, 22nm, 16nm, 12nm, and those are just the ones on the roadmap today.

If you have any evidence, write me... we'll write a story about it and change the world. :) -Rick]

What benefit were transistors? They were wonderful in that more portable equipment made it into people's hands and more cheaply. Ask RCA if they remember Regency and they'll reach for the Rolaids; that little firm came out with the first transistor radio. But wait; this shrinkage of electronics lead to microcircuitry in a walk-to-run concept.

You said they got it right the FIRST time the transistor went out the door? Find those guys and give them controlling shares of Microsoft!

Its funny the amount of advances that have happed since the crash at rosewell, NM

[Not so much as one might think. :) -Rick]

The Roswell crash happened in July of 1947 and the first Transistor was released in Dec of 47. 5 months to identify the part, figure out what it did, find man made materials to make it out of, and then most importantly get the tech declassified.

[The Roswell ship was made up of transistors like the first one we created? Hmmm... explains something of why it crashed. -Rick]

The last part can take years now and the process has been streamlined more than once. How long do think it would take during a major war?

...the amount of advances that have happened since my brother picked his nose way back when. And to think of all the things we wouldn't have without that critical event. Imagine where we'd be if he had gone for double or nothing!!!

(joke)They brought us LCD technology, transistors, antigravity, and hybrid engines. They also unleashed aids as a biological weapon meant to thin out our numbers. They are sneaky those aliens. (/joke)

Seriously.... how many people honestly believe this crap.

[A few on this board, methinks. -Rick]

Do you honestly think that they created a working transistor the first time they tried it? Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain, I'm sure, will tell you experimental work is a lot of trial and error coupled with a measured stretch of the most current theories.

As for a giant government conspiracy to steal and reverse engineer alien technology...grow up. The theories necessary to predict semiconductor physics were years in the making, starting with quantum theory. It's no chance that the transistor was first created when it was. Our science had been headed down that path for many years before then.

Humans are dumb when it comes to relationships in general (personal and politcal ie. WAR). When it comes to anything else we can be downright brilliant. We were created with minds capable of comprehending abstract ideas and concepts like mathematics/logic. We also figured out that Chemistry wasn't witchcraft or magic (it only took us the better part of 200,000 years). Having knowledge of mathematics and chemistry allows us dumb humans to make some pretty smart discoveries. Aliens had nothing to do with it. We gradually progressed to the state of being we are now by pure human curiosity and ingenuity and nothing else (except constant wars that advanced technology).

To the layman the idea of logic circuits and transistors may seem completely alien to just think up all of a sudden, but to a mathematician or physicist those kinds of ideas are just in a days work. Back in the 1940's men used to design planes with slide rules, pencils,and paper. They didn't have calculators to help them out during their CAL II tests. They were brilliant, trained professionals that simply figured out they could make tubes smaller, and they called it a transistor.

Anybody that thinks alien tech led to our modern technology is a fool.

Jeez, some things never die do they?

Oh and linky no worky, all FF keeps saying is "connection reset"

[Haven't you noticed? Tinfoil hat sales are up. BTW, a well known university proved not too long ago that tinfoil actually increases the brain waves, acting like an antenna amplifier. -Rick]

And what has crashed in Japan? Maybe a dumped-off PS 7 console?

:)

im sure they would have just killed the marketing and PR department of this generation, even if they did drop off the ps3 :p

they probably would have gone back and killed the xbox and nintendo too. maybe brought back sega so they could kill them again.

It is amazing how far technology has gone since then. The first hard drive was 5 megabytes by IBM and it cost alot of money. Now hard drives are huge but cost a fraction of the original. If the price was the same, very few would be able to afford a computer. :( I am glad prices have gone down while technology has gone way up. :)

If an alien ship really did crash I think it would take years to research into. I mean what kind of resources did they have for the technology.... something we have never seen. Technology is based on resources.... better resources better technology.

Whatever maybe, and I know well the physics of transistor, I`m skepitical to all. First of all how many electrons(pnp or alien-p-alien) are in the diode that make the transistor?, and how does they assemmble 27,000 of them in one intel processor. Please, I`m very skeptical to this