The History of Science and Technology at Bell Labs

Over the last 80 years, Bell Labs has been one of the most scientifically and technologically productive research labs in the world. Inventions such as the transistor, laser, cell phone, solar cell, negative feedback amplifier, communications satellite and many others were made there. Scientific breakthroughs such as discovery of the Big Bang, the wave nature of the electron, electron localization and the fractional quantum hall effect were also made there making Bell Labs almost unique in terms of large impacts in both science and technology. In my talk, I will discuss the history of the lab, talk about the present and give some suggestions for how I see it evolving into the future.