"Bell Labs, the once-famed research arm of AT&T, celebrated the centennial of its founding last year. In its heyday, starting in the 1940s, the lab created a cascade of inventions, including the transistor, information theory and an enduring computer software language. The labs' digital DNA is in our smartphones, social media and chatbot conversations. Every hour of your day has a bit of Bell Labs in it, observed Jon Gertner, author of The Idea Factory, a history of the storied research center."
"Bell Labs' most far-reaching idea information theory forms the bedrock of computing. The mathematical framework, known as the Magna Carta of the information age, provided a blueprint for sending and receiving information with precision and reliability. It was the brainchild of Claude Shannon, a brilliant eccentric whom the A.I. start-up Anthropic named its chatbot after. Last month, Nvidia announced a new A.I. chip packed with more than 300 billion transistors the tiny on-off electrical switches invented in the lab."
Bell Labs, the research arm of AT&T, produced major mid-century technological breakthroughs that underpin modern digital life. Starting in the 1940s the lab invented the transistor, formulated information theory and created an enduring software language. Information theory provided the mathematical framework for precise, reliable communication. The transistor enabled tiny on-off switches used in contemporary chips, including recent A.I. processors containing hundreds of billions of transistors. The lab developed satellites like Telstar to amplify and retransmit signals. Bell Labs' innovations influenced popular culture and appear in films and television. The institute's extensive funding under AT&T's monopoly supported broad, long-term research.
Read at www.nytimes.com
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