Who Invented the Transistor?
24 points
5 hours ago
| 5 comments
| people.idsia.ch
| HN
Isamu
14 minutes ago
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What’s up with the ending that makes no sense?

>Where are the physical limits? According to Bremermann (1982), a computer of 1 kg of mass and 1 liter of volume can execute at most 1051 operations per second on at most 1032 bits. The trend above will hit the Bremermann limit roughly 25 decades after Z3, circa 2200. However, since there are only 2 x 1030 kg of mass in the solar system, the trend is bound to break within a few centuries, since the speed of light will greatly limit the acquisition of additional mass

They shift from talking about the transistor density to somehow considering a supermassive construct. Reminds me of LLM mashups.

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Aloha
26 minutes ago
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I think a valid part of the question of who invented something is "who built the first working device" - describing something in theory and building working device are not the same thing.

AG Bell wasn't the first one to conceptually invent the telephone, he was among the first (along with Elisha Gray) in making practical working telephone and later a practical working telephone system.

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grunder_advice
25 minutes ago
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I personally detest the way we sanctify some sole individuals while forgetting the bulk of the community. I don't care who published the first patent for the transistor. He or She certainly cannot be credited for all the work that has been put into it so that I can today use a hand held device to post this comment.
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random3
18 minutes ago
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I see where you're coming from, but while that's the case with most stuff ("normal science") , it often isn't the case for truly revolutionary stuff. Many breakthroughs happen not because of the bulk of the community, but against it, often at the highest cost for the individuals.
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godelski
11 minutes ago
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Surprisingly also not true. Yes, people go against the grain and it is required to actually make paradigm shifts but they're never alone nor did they build from scratch. It may be few against many but it is almost never one against all. That one only prevails due to support from others. Those names don't shine but it doesn't mean they weren't critical to the advancement of a field
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godelski
15 minutes ago
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We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants who are just a bunch of people in a trench coat
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dboreham
1 hour ago
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This is a good piece of writing that nicely illustrates how what we perceive as "who invented something" is mostly a function of money and politics.
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ur-whale
52 minutes ago
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I wish Jürgen Schmidhuber would switch back to actually doing AI research instead of having become completely obsessed with "who invented what" because he feels like he has somehow been academically "robbed" at some point in his career.

He's now officially become a full-blown pariah in the AI world, most relevant people in the space running away at the first sight of his goatee at conferences, knowing exactly the kind of complete and utter crank he's become.

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LatencyKills
30 minutes ago
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Was anything he claimed in the article incorrect? Personally, I enjoy these types of historical stories.
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random3
14 minutes ago
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I'll just leave this here https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gLnCTgIAAAAJ&hl=en so maybe you realize that's a bit of a tall claim from a random about one of the top researchers in AI, no matter what their opinions are. Perhaps you should look up what a "crank" actually is before labeling researchers, just because they don't match your religion.
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