William Shockley Quotes
18 quotes from William Shockley — Co-inventor of the transistor (Nobel Prize, 1956)..
“Frequently, I have been asked if an experiment I have planned is pure or applied science; to me it is more important to know if the experiment will yield new and probably enduring knowledge about nature. If it is likely to yield such knowledge, it is, in my opinion, good fundamental research; and this is more important than whether the motivation is purely aesthetic satisfaction on the part of the experimenter on the one hand or the improvement of the stability of a high-power transistor on the other.”
“Regret is unnecessary. Think before you act.”
“If you take a bale of hay and tie it to the tail of a mule and then strike a match and set the bale of hay on fire, and if you then compare the energy expended shortly thereafter by the mule with the energy expended by yourself in the striking of the match, you will understand the concept of amplification.”
“The major cause for American Negroes intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin and thus not remedial to a major degree by improvement in environment.”
“Nature has color-coded groups of individuals so that statistically reliable predictions of their adaptability to intellectual rewarding and effective lives can easily be made and profitably used by the pragmatic man-in-the street.”
“The objective of producing useful devices has strongly influenced the choice of the research projects with which I have been associated.”
“A basic truth that the history of the creation of the transistor reveals is that the foundations of transistor electronics were created by making errors and following hunches that failed to give what was expected.”
“An important fraction of United States industry adheres to the idea that research of a fundamental character is worthwhile from a practical point of view.”
“My decision to come to Bell Telephone Laboratories immediately after obtaining my Ph.D. in 1936 was strongly influenced by the fact that my supervisor would be C. J. Davisson.”
“I am overwhelmed by an irresistible temptation to do my climb by moonlight and unroped. This is contrary to all my rock climbing teaching & does not mean poor training, but only a strong-headedness.”
“My elation with the group's success was balanced by the frustration of not being one of the inventors. I experienced frustration that my personal efforts had not resulted in a significant inventive contribution of my own.”
“Shockley had convinced himself he was an expert on managing creative people.”
“A genealogy of Silicon Valley showed that virtually every company in the valley could show a line leading directly to someone who worked at and eventually left Fairchild Semiconductor. Everyone from Fairchild originally came from Shockley Semiconductor. Shockley's company was the seed of Silicon Valley.”
“I am overwhelmed by an irresistible temptation to do my climbing by moonlight and unroped. This is contrary to all my rock climbing teaching and does not mean poor training but only a strong headedness.”
“As the senior transistor hunter of our group, I congratulate you on your excellent article. May I add that I came on it only after it was found and displayed by Drs. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain to whom credit for the invention is due.”
“The only heritage I can leave to Billy is the feeling of power and joy of responsibility for setting the world right on something.”
“The half-baked ideas of people are better than the ideas of half-baked people.”
“Following three horses and a harrow in the dust was what made a physicist out of me.”
