Mill Talk:AT&T's Idea Factory:How Bell Labs invented the tech of the future

Presented by Jon Gertner

The presentation will explain the origins and unique capabilities of Bell Laboratories, AT&T’s vaunted R&D organization. The work at the Labs led to many of the most revolutionary technologies of the 20th Century, including the transistor, the laser, digital communications, the solar cell, and communications satellites.

But why was Bell Labs so innovative? What went on inside this remarkable organization? How did its engineers and scientists organize and conduct their work—and how did it help the phone company and enable modern communications?

This 45-minute talk will explain the importance and function of Bell Labs; it will also tell the in-depth story of two of the Labs’ most formative technologies: the transistor and solar cell. A question-and-answer period will follow afterwards.

Jon Gertner, a journalist and historian, is the author of The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of Innovation (2012) and The Ice at the End of the World: Greenland’s Buried Past and Earth’s Perilous Future (2019). His next book, about NASA’s long-running Voyager mission, will be published by Random House in the summer of 2027. A longtime feature writer on science and technology for the New York Times Magazine, Jon's stories and book reviews have also appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Book Review, and Wired Magazine. He is the recipient of grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers; and a “public scholar” fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2020, Jon served as Princeton University’s McGraw Visiting Professor of Writing. Jon grew up in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, and now lives with his family in nearby Maplewood.

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Host or Publisher Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation