[LinuxAmbulance]

The bit about how semiconductors could only have been made in America because only America had the specific combination of freedom of speech, irreverence, pragmatism over dogmatism, meritocracy and welcoming outsiders is definitely an interesting idea, although how true that is?

[KK7NIL]

Considering two Germans in Paris independently discovered the transistor just a few months after Shockley's team, this seems like a self-serving fantasy: https://www.computerhistory.org/siliconengine/the-european-t...

There's no question in my mind that American industry and capital markets were far better at pivoting to this new industry though.

[amelius]

If you have a diode, then the transistor is only a small step away.

Semiconductor physics books require you to work through a lot of material until you understand the diode, and then the bipolar transistor is just one next chapter.

[KK7NIL]

> If you have a diode, then the transistor is only a small step away.

It is not. We've had semiconductor diodes since 1874, but it took many decades to develop the solid state physics to understand how they worked and how to extend them. Crucially, you need some understanding of quantum theory (energy levels, Fermi distributions, etc), which was not developed until the 20s and 30s.

Even after they had the physics down, Shockley still spent over a decade unsuccessfully trying to get a FET to work (due to trapped charges which were not understood until the 50s). This is partially why the experimentalists, Bardeen and Brattain, are quoted alongside Shockley as the inventors of the transistor, even though Shockley had come up with a lot of the theory years before.

[contingencies]

Not very. The missing macro is that during and after WWII, the US had the luxury of being the only intact industrial economy.

In this environment, Shockley, who himself was the child of an engineer and has been criticized as a eugenicist (ie. explicitly not welcoming outsiders, despite his father speaking eight languages, and being born in London), ran a Bell research lab and was exposed to a plurality of emergent military problems to which he applied physics.

After the war, and co-inventing the transistor (probably largely in response to this wartime experience), some of his ex employees including Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore split off and started research under Fairchild.

Notably, this occurred right when chemistry was having its moment, and the US had huge postwar capacity to enable innovation. While total industrial production reached 247% of prewar levels during WWII, chemical production soared to 412%.

The group succeeded in 1960. Of the eight who left to found this novel research group, only two were immigrants. Six were educated at elite US universities like Caltech, MIT and Stanford.

[StableAlkyne]

> The missing macro is that during and after WWII, the US had the luxury of being the only intact industrial economy.

While true, this is generally overemphasized. The destruction of industry in other countries helped the postwar US, but the US didn't need that help to begin with to achieve an absurd lead over everyone else.

If we look at 1938, the US still has a higher GDP than Germany and the USSR (#2 and #3) combined. This is just before the war, so everyone has had over 20 years to recover, and they hadn't started bombing each other yet.

Stats based on: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1334182/wwii-pre-war-gdp...

The US is massive, has cheap undeveloped land, natural resources, and easy transit (you have a massive river running down the center for barges, along with lots of flat runs for railroads). Compare with Europe, where space and resources are a constant problem, alongside tensions between countries wasting time.

The US was playing the industrial revolution on easy mode, in comparison to everyone else

[JuniperMesos]

> In this environment, Shockley, who himself was the child of an engineer and has been criticized as a eugenicist (ie. explicitly not welcoming outsiders, despite his father speaking eight languages, and being born in London), ran a Bell research lab and was exposed to a plurality of emergent military problems to which he applied physics.

Eugenics doesn't have anything in particular to say about whether outsiders should or should not be welcomed. It makes a set of scientific claims about how heredity affects people and a set of moral claims about how people should attempt to control these effects.

[boelboel]

America was very much against immigrants between about 1925 and 1965. If you look at the history of the US they needed immigrants to settle the land, before their expansion westward they were quite against immigration.

[petcat]

> America was very much against immigrants between about 1925 and 1965.

And still despite immigration reforms and national origin quotas, USA still accepted by far more immigrants during this time period than any other country.

[boelboel]

Per capita far from (Australia and Canada, Israel, France, Taiwan, Switzerland , Belgium, Argentina...) on an absolute number sure because they were the most populous industrialized country. Even the latter you could argue against as west Germany had many after WW2 move from all over 'back to' Germany.

[expedition32]

Because there was a difference between what the PEOPLE wanted and what the ELITES wanted.

The railroad barron needed cheap labour and didn't give a flying fuck about the KKK clowns marching in Washington.

[johncole]

Is this any different than Europe, Asia?

[DaSHacka]

This has always been the case all throughout modern history though

The elites always want cheaper labor, while the existing domestic workforce usually opposes such measures (as it obviously devalues their labor)

[johncole]

Our immigration policy has always been reactionary and counter productive to our interest. Yet people still want to come. Why?

[boelboel]

I don't think the immigration policy has always been counter productive to American interests. The US has good institutions regardless of being reactionary and has many structural advantages (e.g. geology, size, good neighbours, climate, waterways ...). People want to come to the US because it's rich and their home countries have deficiencies.