Celebrate NJ! Science, Technology & Environment

Bell Laboratories By Stephen Wood June 3, 2010

Bell Laboratories, the research division of Alcatel-Lucent, has played a huge role in the industry of technology and communications. It has helped New Jersey become an icon in the telecommunications field. It has housed some of the greatest physicists of all time, having won seven Nobel Prizes. From its inception in the 1920s to the 2000s there have been many ground breaking discoveries made there.

            One of the most important and well known innovations made at Bell Laboratories is the transistor. Without this invention, almost none of the modern technology we use today would be possible. The transistor is in virtually all electronic devices. In a nutshell, the transistor is a device commonly used to either amplify or switch electronic signals. First made in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley, they won the Noble Prize in 1956 for its discovery.

             Another major innovation created at Bell Labs is the laser. The laser is used in many different ways, from research of futuristic technologies, to everyday items like CD players, DVD players, computers, and fiber optic cable, a practically limitless form of data communications. Like the transistor, it is vital to much of our technology we use everyday.

            Although Bell Labs is well known for both of these inventions, some lesser known creations have made just as big a difference. One example of this is the synchronous-sound motion picture system, which allowed sound and video to be combined into one, something we now take for granted. Also, the C programming language was created at Bell Labs. The C language is now very commonly used for creating portable applications and has become one of, if not the most, widely used programming languages, since it was developed 38 years ago. In 1979, a new form of the C language, called C++, was created by Bjarne Stroustup working at, of course, Bell Laboratories.