Discovering Electronics: What Inventors Found Out

[Knowledger]

I've been lately thinking about the factors behind inventing and the discovering of many things in our life specially in the electronics field, I really wish if I can ask a an electronics scientist or someone who knows the answer for my question, I already know that observation, thinking, analyzing, experiencing, trying and reasoning are important factors, I am thinking of studying electronics and learn about how did the scientists discovered or invented those awesomes stuffs and learn the factors based on real examples, I know that if I want to learn electronics, it might take more than 5 months if not more than year, so can anyone give many examples of how did the scientist discovered or invented things specially in the electronics field? are there any books that talks about the way the scientists discovered things that you can recommend? is there any site that answers question deeply by professors or scientist for fee? thanks

 

[berkeman]

This is a fun book about the birth of the personal computer in Silicon Valley:

"Fire In The Valley"
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071358927/?tag=pfamazon01-20

There are also some good books about inventions at Hewlett Packard and at Bell Labs. I'll see if I can find the references for you.

Also, if you are looking for a good book to learn basic electronics, check out "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill.

 

[AlephZero]

A history of supercomputing in the USA, and a biography of Seymour Cray:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471048852/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It makes the point pretty well that "observation, thinking, analyzing, experiencing, trying and reasoning" are only one side of the story...

 

[Maxwell]

Try looking up these names and terms on Wikipedia: Transistor, MOSFET, Shockley, and Integrated Circuit.

 

[berkeman]

I googled HP Labs invention book, and got some interesting leads. I didn't find the book I was looking for (it's at home at the moment, and I'm at work), but it turns out wikipedia has a very interesting long entry about HP and HP Labs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett-Packard