PHYSICIST

William Shockley

1910 - 1989

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William Bradford Shockley ( SHOK-lee; February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American solid-state physicist, electrical engineer, and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Houser 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". 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. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. William Shockley is the 243rd most popular physicist (down from 236th in 2019), the 728th most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 631st in 2019) and the 32nd most popular British Physicist.

William Shockley was most famous for his work in the development of the transistor, which is a device that can be used to amplify or switch electronic signals.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, William Shockley ranks 243 out of 851. Before him are Vitaly Ginzburg, Nikolay Basov, Arthur Ashkin, Willard Boyle, John Cockcroft, and Gérard Mourou. After him are David Bohm, Satyendra Nath Bose, Ivar Giaever, Ratko Janev, Anton Zeilinger, and Kenneth G. Wilson.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1910, William Shockley ranks 35. Before him are Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Ronald Coase, Ludwig Stumpfegger, Kim Yong-sik, William Hanna, and Samuel Barber. After him are Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Edda Mussolini, Jean Anouilh, Benzion Netanyahu, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, and Nathuram Godse. Among people deceased in 1989, William Shockley ranks 35. Before him are Thomas Bernhard, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Michel Aflaq, John Hicks, Daphne du Maurier, and Hermann Oberth. After him are John Cassavetes, Sugar Ray Robinson, Giuseppe Siri, Danilo Kiš, Leon Festinger, and Cornel Wilde.

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, William Shockley ranks 728 out of 8,785. Before him are Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley (1508), John Rhys-Davies (1944), Philippa of Lancaster (1360), Antony Hewish (1924), Albert Finney (1936), and Geoffrey Hinton (1947). After him are George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859), James Edward Smith (1759), Herbert C. Brown (1912), Aubrey Beardsley (1872), Catherine Zeta-Jones (1969), and Robert II of Scotland (1316).

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Among PHYSICISTS In United Kingdom

Among physicists born in United Kingdom, William Shockley ranks 32. Before him are Henry Moseley (1887), John Kendrew (1917), James Jeans (1877), David Brewster (1781), Andrew Huxley (1917), and John Cockcroft (1897). After him are C. P. Snow (1905), Osborne Reynolds (1842), Anthony James Leggett (1938), Daniel Rutherford (1749), Peter Mansfield (1933), and Charles Wheatstone (1802).

British born Physicists

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