Reborn in America

Chapter 24: Make an invention

After the record was recorded, Alex took away the master tape. Fastest update

However, he left several suppressed records to Rudy, and others got one to keep as a souvenir. Only two or three of these first edition albums remained until the 21st century, and one of them was in the hands of Alex.

Someone once put out one for auction in 1970, and the result was a sky-high price of millions of dollars. After that, I never heard of such a thing, and the value of this record is getting higher and higher, and it has reached the level of pricelessness in the market.

After these days of recording work, Alex realized that living in an age without computers is really inconvenient.

"It would be great if you had a computer! It would be much more convenient to record records like that. Unfortunately, computers in this era are still military products, and more importantly, the current computers are still the first generation, and they are horribly large." Alex thought Can't help complaining.

and many more! The computers just started are all tube digital machines, so transistors are not used yet!

Alex suddenly noticed a big problem, that is, do you want to push it properly! Advance the computer technology in this world a bit, so that the era of popularization of computers will come soon. The question is, what should he do so that the people in the Pentagon will not notice.

You know, from electron tubes to transistors, the computer's calculation speed has risen from thousands to tens of thousands per second. Improved by more than 10 times. Most importantly, the volume should be reduced a lot. This kind of technology appeared in the hands of an eight-year-old child who shuddered when he thought about it.

Alex thought for a long time, and found that he didn't seem to understand computer hardware knowledge. However, he does know that the transition of a computer from a tube to a transistor is very smooth, and it is only necessary to replace the original tube with a transistor. The problem is that there are not so many types of transistors now, and it will take a few years before there are enough transistors to replace electron tubes.

The first transistor was manufactured in 1947. In 1950, there were bipolar transistors, and it will not be commercialized until 1953. The question now is not whether Alex can invent it, but whether he can get access to high-tech products such as transistors.

He laughed self-deprecatingly: "It's really unfounded. It's a question of whether I can get the transistor."

After he figured out the problem, he put the question aside, but he still plans to ask someone to ask it, if he can get a transistor, he doesn't mind pretending to be a genius inventor. There are so many strange things in this world, why should he tie his hands and feet? People must be free to live.

The people Alex looked for were professors at the University of Chicago. Those professors still remembered him vividly, and they often had contact. This time it happened to ask them to help. He was looking for the mathematics professor. This professor was called Sawyer and had been teaching in Chicago for more than ten years.

Soon, Professor Sawyer had news. He is not an expert in this area, but someone among his colleagues and friends knows. A friend happened to be in Bell Labs and knew everything about transistors.

His friend was named William Shockley (williamshockley), who happened to be one of the three who invented the transistor. When Shockley received a call from an old friend, he was studying bipolar transistors, and he had said everything he could say. The information on transistors has long been not classified. A patent was applied for in 1947, which was a sensational news around the world at that time.

"Sawyer, why did you suddenly ask about these things? I remember that you were not very interested in transistors before." Shockley asked strangely.

Sawyer said unabashedly, "Yeah, I am not interested even now. However, I have a kid who is very curious about your research, ask me to ask. By the way, do you have any information on that side? I think If you want a copy, the more detailed it is. Of course, don’t give me the secrets of your laboratory. If someone knows it, it will be difficult for you and me."

Shockley laughed and said: "You still want secrets, dream about it! No problem, I have some outdated things here, you can take them. By the way, who are you talking about?"

Sawyer then recounted the story of Alex, and emphasized the IQ of 220. He is very confident in Alex, and has been in contact with Alex for several years. Other professors at the school didn't think that Alex's IQ was that high. This is because Sawyer's test method was wrong.

He has been studying the subject of IQ testing, and after being denied, he was very annoyed. So I tried to find evidence from it to prove that my opinion was correct.

"Wow! IQ of 220 is much higher than mine!" Shockley said jokingly, and he was not too cold with the IQ test.

However, people in this era are superstitious about these things, and many people are studying them. Sawyer is one of the experts. The mathematics professor is only his means of earning a living, and the IQ test is his hobby.

"This kid has such a high IQ, what's his name? Maybe I will see him in the newspaper in the future."

"Sorry, I can't tell you his name. I have an agreement with his parents to keep a secret for them."

"Okay, okay! You've been studying IQ tests. Does this thing work?"

"If you don’t believe me, forget it. Anyway, I think the IQ test is useful. It allows us to find ways to improve the quality of humans throughout the day. Through eugenics and postnatal care, we can selectively retain high-IQ people and eliminate low-IQ people. Kind."

"Your remarks are dangerous, my friend! I remember the Nazis used to do this."

The IQ test has been around for more than a hundred years. During World War II, the Germans believed in this method very much, believing that one test can divide people into three, six or nine classes. They clamored that the Aryans are the best race!

Not only in Germany, but also in the United States, there was this era of crazy and superstitious IQ. The United States first initiated the movement of eugenics and eugenics in human history. More than 30 states in the United States have successively implemented forced or secret sterilization operations on “non-eugenic groups” because the government believes that these people’s IQs are too low. Low American IQ level.

There are also laws in some states in the United States that require criminals on death row to undergo an IQ test. Once the IQ is lower than 70, they will be regarded as mentally retarded and cannot be held responsible for their actions, and the government cannot execute them.

Sawyer naturally knows the dark history. He retorted: "Since you don't believe in the accuracy of IQ tests, what are you worried about?"

Shockley was speechless by what he said, and the two hung up after talking for a while. Sawyer did not pay attention to Shockley's ridicule. He believed in his own research. He believed that Alex could finally prove his test was correct.

The information was quickly sent to Alex's hands, but after a casual look, he found that until now, the bipolar transistor has not been invented. He only knew that it should have been invented in 1950, but he didn't know who invented it.

As a science student, Alex certainly knows the principle and structure of bipolar transistors. The education of the celestial dynasty is good. No matter what kind of knowledge, no matter whether it is useful or not, the school will try its best to stuff it into the students' minds.

The so-called bipolar transistor is actually composed of two back-to-back pn transistors with current amplification effect. In this era, point contact transistors have just been created, but they have not yet developed into junction transistors. For manufacturing technology, the conditions are ripe, but people have not yet thought of using pn structure to manufacture.

Bipolar transistors have two basic structures: pnp type and npn type. In these three-layer semiconductors, the middle layer is called the base region, and the outer two layers are called the emitter region and the collector region. When a small amount of current is injected into the base region, a larger current will be formed between the emitter region and the collector region, which is the amplification effect of the transistor.

Alex hesitated, he still wrote what he knew on a piece of paper, and listed the structure and voltage parameters of various transistors. Of course, they are all explained in the tone of conjecture.

Bipolar transistors are also called semiconductor diodes, which mainly rely on pn junctions. According to the pn structure, there will be different diode types.

The point-contact diode is formed by pressing a metal pin on a single chip of germanium or silicon material and then using the current method. This type of diode has a simple structure, low price, and a wide range of applications.

There are also key diodes, alloy diodes, diffusion diodes, mesa diodes, planar diodes, etc., all of which are written on paper by Alex in a way that includes both pictures and texts. He just studied for a while in his spare time in singing, and he painted pretty well.

There are still some that have not been written out. Those are diodes that use alloy technology. The current technology is more difficult to implement.

Alex wrote in great detail. This kind of thing is already rotten to the street in later generations, but it is the most advanced thing in this era.

The most important thing is the theoretical parameters. With this part of the content, people who are familiar with transistor production can see it as a detailed design description drawing.

When Alex checked the information and wrote down the description of the bipolar transistor structure, Sawyer was not free. He has been staring at Alex's movements and expressions, and he has also read the information given by Shockley, and he can't understand the things on it.

Unexpectedly, after reading it, Alex would come to pen and paper after a moment of contemplation, drawing and writing, and he could see that the content on it was the structure design of the transistor. What makes him care is that those transistors also listed parameters.

"How did he do it?" Sawyer was silent on the surface, but his heart was already shocked.

Science is not about singing and painting, and patting your head can produce results. If anyone dares to do this, he will definitely be beaten into the ranks of evil scientists. For example, the achievements of Nikola Tesla who claimed to be able to experiment in his mind are obvious to all. Modern society is based on his invention of alternating current. However, he was rejected by the entire scientific community, even slandered as a liar, and his fate in his old age was extremely bleak.

Ordinary people may not understand the legend of Nikola Tesla in the scientific world, but Sawyer’s generation knows it very well. People who don't know Tesla will strongly deny Tesla's achievements, thinking that this kind of invention can be invented and created without experimentation is a silly talk, which is completely lunatic nonsense.

Science generally classifies things that cannot be understood as superstition. Regarding the heterogeneous among scientists, they will even use religious guards to deal with witches and find ways to obliterate each other. Soon after Tesla's death, all his achievements were wiped out by these people, so that decades later, people can only learn about him through some unofficial records.

Only those who know Tesla will be convinced by the other's intelligence. For example, Mark Twain once had a deep friendship with Tesla, and he believed in Tesla's remarks. Mark Twain saw Tesla create a lightning ball with his own eyes and played with it in his hand. In his eyes, Tesla was full of mystery, incomprehensible, but not a liar.

To this end, he also wrote a novel based on Tesla. The name of this novel is "The Mysterious Stranger".

Sawyer was fortunate enough to meet Tesla. According to his judgment, Tesla is a very individual scientist. Others may not understand Tesla, and therefore attack Tesla's personality. Sawyer also had no way to understand, but he thought that Tesla may be a little naive, but he is definitely not a liar.

That being the case, Tesla must be a genius that ordinary people cannot understand. So where is the difference between them, is it IQ? At that time, Sawyer thought for a long time, and finally invested in the research of IQ test, trying to find out the secret.

Less than ten years after Tesla's death, Sawyer saw a similar genius again. How could this not surprise him.