The Invention of the Integrated Circuit : Jean Hoerni's Patent Notebook
It’s often said that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Here we can look over the shoulders of two giants and see them working together.
Science writers are sometimes fond of ‘ Eureka’ moments. The original legend is that Archimedes exclaimed ‘Eureka', Greek for ‘I have found it’ when he realized that the volume of water displaced from his bath must equal the volume of his own body. Archimedes reportedly used his discovery to test whether a golden crown had been debased with cheaper silver.
The authenticity of this story is dubious. A more authentic ‘Eureka’ moment is documented by mathematician Gauss writing EUREKA in one of his notebooks on the discovery of the proof of a theorem in number theory.
During the 1849 California State Constitutional Convention at Monterey, the delegates had to agree upon a design for the Great Seal of California, which included a representative motto. … Since the seal’s design included a gold miner, it seemed most fitting to the delegates to adopt this phrase as the State Motto. It became the official State Motto in 1963. Seventeen California locations bear the name Eureka.
Today’s post is about a Eureka moment in the 1950s that would be far more valuable for California, and for the world, than any gold find. It was a key step towards the development of the modern integrated circuit. Like Gauss’s discovery, it’s documented in a handwritten notebook.
