Ok, This Isn’t Skynet

The Modern Computer Age can just about be tied to this date, as on December 23, 1947 a team a Bell Labs composed of John Bardeen and Walter Brattain and led by William Shockley demonstrated the first transistor.  The word was coined by fellow Bell Labs scientist John Pierce by combining transfer resistor, from trans-resistance.  Bell Laboratory lawyers stepped in, advising the trio that using an electric field in a grid was neither new nor unknown to the patent office, leading them to refine their discovery into the point-contact transistor, for which they would later share the Nobel Prize.  One of the most significant technological advances of the twentieth century, today transistors are an important component of almost every electronic device, and billions are made every year.  

Image of a replica of the first transistor via wikipedia.