Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Crystal Fire

By: Michael Riordan, Lillian Hoddeson
Narrated by: Dennis McKee
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £21.99

Buy Now for £21.99

Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

On December 16, 1947, two physicists at Bell Laboratories, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, jabbed two electrodes into a sliver of germanium half an inch long. The electrical power coming out of that piece of germanium was 100 times stronger than what went in. In that moment, the transistor was invented and the information age began.

Crystal Fire recounts the story of the transistor team at Bell Labs, led by William Shockley, who shared the Nobel Prize with Bardeen and Brattain. While his colleagues went on to other research, Shockley grew increasingly obsessed with the new gadget. He went on to form the first semiconductor company in what would become Silicon Valley.

Above all, Crystal Fire is a tale of the human factors in technology: the pride and jealousies coupled with scientific and economic aspirations that led to the creation of modern microelectronics and ignited the greatest technological explosion in history.
©1998 Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson (P)1998 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Engineering History
Show More Show Less
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

 How the Laser Happened cover art
Flashes of Creation cover art
3 Geniuses Who Changed the World cover art
Building the H Bomb: A Personal History cover art
The Big Score cover art
Too Big for a Single Mind cover art
Conquering the Electron cover art
Debt - Updated and Expanded cover art
Bernoulli's Fallacy cover art
Herculean cover art
Algorithms to Live By cover art
How to Build a Car cover art
The Innovators cover art
Wizard cover art
The Soul of a New Machine cover art
Turing's Cathedral cover art

What listeners say about Crystal Fire

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 2 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Jamrock

excellent book, below average recording.

A must listen for technology enthusiast, people interested in the semiconductor revolution. the recording is poor but not to the point that would discualify this audiobook.

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!