Bell Labs
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Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) is the research organization of Alcatel-Lucent and previously the United States Bell System.
Bell Laboratories is headquartered at Murray Hill, New Jersey, in the USA, and has research and development facilities throughout the world.
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[edit] Origin and historical locations
In 1925 Western Electric Research Laboratories and part of the engineering department of AT&T were consolidated to form Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. as a separate entity. The first president of research was Frank B. Jewett, who stayed until 1940. Ownership of Bell Laboratories was evenly split between AT&T and Western Electric. Its principal work was to design and support the equipment Western Electric built for Bell System operating companies, including switches. Support work included the writing and maintaining of the Bell System Practices (BSP), a comprehensive series of technical manuals. The Labs also carried out consulting work for them, and US government work including Project Nike. A few workers were assigned to basic research, which attracted much attention. Until the 1940s, the principal locations were in New York.
Among the historical Bell Laboratories locations in New Jersey were Crawford Hill, Deal, Freehold, Holmdel, Lincroft, Long Branch, Middletown, Murray Hill, Princeton, Piscataway, Red Bank, and Whippany. Of these Crawford Hill, Murray Hill, and Whippany remain. The largest facility in the country was in Illinois, at Naperville-Lisle, which had the single largest concentration of employees (about 11,000) prior to the telecomm downturn of 2001. There also were facilities in Columbus, Ohio, Allentown and Breinigsville in Pennsylvania, and Westminster, Colorado. Since 2001, many of the former locations have been scaled back or shut down entirely.
[edit] Discoveries and Developments
At its peak, Bell Laboratories was the premier facility of its type, developing a wide range of revolutionary technologies, including radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, information theory, the UNIX operating system, and the C programming language. There have been 6 Nobel Prizes awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories. [1]
- 1937 Clinton J. Davisson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating the wave nature of matter
- 1956 John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley received the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the transistor
- 1977 Philip W. Anderson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for developing an improved understanding of the electronic structure of glass and magnetic materials
- 1978 Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. Penzias and Wilson were cited for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, a nearly uniform glow that fills outer space in the microwave part of the spectrum
- 1997 Steven Chu, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light
- 1998 Horst Stormer, Robert Laughlin, and Daniel Tsui, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery and explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect
[edit] 1920s
During its first year of operation, facsimile (fax) transmission, invented elsewhere, was first demonstrated publicly by the Bell Laboratories. In 1926, the laboratories invented the first synchronous-sound motion picture system [2], and continued to produce inventions throughout its lifetime.
In 1924, Bells Labs physicist Dr. Walter A. Shewhart proposed the control chart as a method to determine when a process was in a state of statistical control. Shewart's methods were the basis for statistical process control (SPC) - the use of statistically-based tools and techniques for the management and improvement of processes. This was the origin of the modern quality movement, including Six Sigma.
In 1927, a long-distance television transmission of images of Herbert Hoover from Washington to New York was successful, and in 1928 the thermal noise in a resistor was first measured by John B. Johnson with Harry Nyquist, who provided a theoretical analysis. During the 1920s, the one-time pad cipher was invented by Gilbert Vernam and Joseph Mauborgne at the laboratories; Bell's Claude Shannon later proved that it was unbreakable.
[edit] 1930s
In 1931, a foundation for radio astronomy was laid by Karl Jansky during his work investigating the origins of static on long-distance shortwave communications. He discovered that radio waves were being emitted from the center of the galaxy. In 1933, stereo signals were transmitted live from Philadelphia to Washington, DC. In 1937, the vocoder, the first electronic speech synthesizer was invented and demonstrated by Homer Dudley. Bell researcher Clinton Davisson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with George Paget Thomson for the discovery of electron diffraction, which helped lay the foundation for solid-state electronics.
[edit] 1940s
In the early 1940s, the photovoltaic cell was developed by Russell Ohl. In 1943, Bell developed SIGSALY, the first digital scrambled speech transmission system, used by the Allies in World War II. In 1947, the transistor, probably the most important invention developed by Bell Laboratories, was invented by John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain, and William Bradford Shockley (all of whom subsequently won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956). In 1948, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", one of the founding works in information theory, was published by Claude Shannon in the Bell System Technical Journal; it built in part on earlier work in the field by Bell researchers Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley. It also introduced a series of increasingly complex calculators through the decade. Shannon was also the founder of modern cryptography with his 1949 paper Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems.
[edit] Calculators
- Model I - Complex Number Calculator, completed January 1940, for doing calculations of complex numbers, See George Stibitz
- Model II - Relay Calculator or Relay Interpolator, September 1943, for aiming anti-aircraft guns by interpolating from positions
- Model III - Ballistic Computer, June 1944, for calculations of ballistic trajectories
- Model IV - Bell Laboratories Relay Calculator, March 1945, a second Ballistic Computer
- Model V - Bell Laboratories General Purpose Relay Calculator, two were built, July 1946 and February 1947, which were general-purpose programmable computers using electromechanical relays
- Model VI - November 1950, an enhanced Model V
[edit] 1950s
The 1950s saw fewer developments and less activity on the scientific side. Efforts concentrated more precisely on the Laboratories' prime mission of supporting the Bell System with engineering advances including N-carrier, TD Microwave radio relay, Direct Distance Dialing, E-repeaters, Wire spring relays, and improved switching systems. Maurice Karnaugh, in 1953, developed the Karnaugh map as tool to facilitate management of Boolean algebraic expressions. In 1954, The first photo voltaic was examined at Bell Laboratories. As for the spectacular side of the business, in 1956 TAT-1, the first transatlantic telephone cable was laid between Scotland and Newfoundland, in a joint effort by AT&T, Bell Laboratories, and British and Canadian telephone companies. A year later, in 1957, MUSIC, one of the first computer programs to play electronic music, was created by Max Mathews. New greedy algorithms developed by Robert C. Prim and Joseph Kruskal, revolutionized computer network design. In 1958, the laser was first described, in a technical paper by Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes.
[edit] 1960s
In 1960, Dawon Kahng and Martin Atalla invented the metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET); the MOSFET has achieved electronic hegemony and sustains the large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs) underlying today's information society. In 1962, the electret microphone was invented by Gerhard M. Sessler and James Edward Maceo West. In 1964, the Carbon dioxide laser was invented by Kumar Patel. In 1965, Penzias and Wilson discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background, and won the Nobel Prize in 1978. In 1966, Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), a key technology in wireless services, was developed and patented by R. W. Chang. In 1968, Molecular beam epitaxy was developed by J.R. Arthur and A.Y. Cho; molecular beam epitaxy allows semiconductor chips and laser matrices to be manufactured one atomic layer at a time. In 1969, the UNIX operating system was created by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson. The Charge-coupled device (CCD) was invented in 1969 by Willard Boyle and George E. Smith.
[edit] 1970s
The 1970s and 1980s saw more and more computer-related inventions at the Bell Laboratories as part of the personal computing revolution. In 1970 Dennis Ritchie developed the C programming language as a replacement for the interpretive B for use in writing the UNIX operating system (also developed at Bell Laboratories). In 1971, an improved task priority system for computerized switching systems for telephone traffic was invented by Erna Schneider Hoover, who received one of the first software patents for it. In 1976, Fiber optics systems were first tested in Georgia and in 1980, the first single-chip 32-bit microprocessor, the BELLMAC-32A was demonstrated; it went into production in 1982.
[edit] 1980s
In 1980, the TDMA and CDMA digital cellular telephone technology was patented. In 1982, Fractional quantum Hall effect was discovered by Horst Störmer and former Bell Laboratories researchers Robert B. Laughlin and Daniel C. Tsui; they consequently won a Nobel Prize in 1998 for the discovery. In 1983, the C++ programming language was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension to the original C programming language also developed at Bell Laboratories.
In 1984, the first photoconductive antennas for picosecond electromagnetic radiation were demonstrated by Auston et al. This type of antenna now becomes an important component in terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. In 1984, the Karmarkar Linear Programming Algorithm was developed by mathematician Narendra Karmarkar. Also in 1984, a divestiture agreement with the American Federal government forced the break-up of AT&T: Bellcore (now Telcordia Technologies) was split off from Bell Laboratories to provide the same R&D functions for the newly created local exchange carriers. AT&T also was limited to using the Bell trademark only in association with Bell Laboratories. Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., was then renamed AT&T Bell Laboratories, Inc., and became a wholly owned company of the new AT&T Technologies unit, the former Western Electric. The 5ESS Switch was developed during this transition. In 1985, laser cooling was used to slow and manipulate atoms by Steven Chu and team. Also in 1985, Bell Laboratories was awarded the National Medal of Technology "For contribution over decades to modern communication systems". During the 1980s, the Plan 9 operating system was developed as a replacement for Unix which was also developed at Bell Laboratories in 1969. Development of the Radiodrum, a three dimensional electronic instrument. In 1988, TAT-8 became the first fiber optic transatlantic cable.
[edit] 1990s
In 1990, WaveLAN, the first wireless local area network (LAN) was developed at Bell Laboratories. Wireless network technology would not become popular until the late 1990s and was first demonstrated in 1995. In 1991, the 56K modem technology was patented by Nuri Dağdeviren and his team. In 1994, the Quantum cascade laser was invented by the Federico Capasso, Alfred Cho, and their collaborators and was later greatly improved by the innovations of Claire Gmachl. Also in 1994, Peter Shor devised his quantum factorization algorithm. In 1996, SCALPEL electron lithography, which prints features atoms wide on microchips, was invented by Lloyd Harriott and his team. The Inferno operating system, an update of Plan 9, was created by Dennis Ritchie with others, using the new concurrent Limbo programming language. A high performance database engine (Dali) was developed which became DataBlitz in its product form.
AT&T spun off Bell Laboratories, along with most of its equipment-manufacturing business, into a new company named Lucent Technologies. AT&T retained a smaller number of researchers, who made up the staff of the newly-created AT&T Laboratories. In 1997, 50 years after inventing the original transistor, the smallest practical transistor (60 nanometers or a mere 182 atoms wide) was built. In 1998, the first optical router was invented and the first combination of voice and data traffic on an Internet Protocol (IP) network was developed at the Laboratories.
[edit] 2000s
2000 was an active year for the Laboratories, in which DNA machine prototypes were developed; progressive geometry compression algorithm made widespread 3-D communication practical; the first electrically powered organic laser invented; a large-scale map of cosmic dark matter was compiled, and F-15, an organic material that makes plastic transistors possible, was invented. In 2002, Jan Hendrik Schön, a German physicist, was fired after his work was found to contain fraudulent data. Over a dozen of Schön's papers were found to contain completely fictional or considerably altered data, including a paper on molecular-scale transistors that had been received as a breakthrough. Also in 2002, the world's first semiconductor laser that emits light continuously and reliably over a broad spectrum of infrared wavelengths was invented. In 2003, the New Jersey Nanotechnology Laboratory was created at Murray Hill, New Jersey.
In 2005, Dr. Jeong Kim, former President of Lucent's Optical Network Group, returned from academia to become President of Bell Laboratories.
In April 2006, Bell Laboratories's parent company, Lucent Technologies, signed a merger agreement with Alcatel. On December 1, 2006 the merged company, Alcatel-Lucent, began operations. This deal raised concerns in the United States, where Bell Laboratories works on defense contracts. A separate company with a US board was set up to manage Bell Laboratories' and Lucent's sensitive US government contracts.
In December 2007, it was announced the former Lucent Bell Laboratories and the former Alcatel Research and Innovation would be merged into one organization under the name of Bell Laboratories, continuing the commitment to research at Alcatel-Lucent. This is the first period of growth following many years during which Bell Laboratories progressively lost manpower due to layoffs and spin-offs.
[edit] See also
- Alcatel-Lucent - Parent company of Bell Laboratories
- Arun Netravali - Bell Laboratories engineer - former president of Bell Laboratories
- Walter A. Shewhart - Bell Laboratories engineer - "father of statistical quality control"
- George Stibitz - Bell Laboratories engineer - "father of the modern digital computer"
- "Worse is Better" - A Software design philosophy also called "The New Jersey Style" under which UNIX and C are supposedly developed
- History of mobile phones - Bell Laboratories conception and development of cellular phones
- High speed photography & Wollensak - Fastax high speed (rotating prism) cameras developed by Bell Labs
- Sound film - Westrex sound system for cinema films developed by Bell Labs
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Bell Labs
- Timeline of discoveries as of 2006
- Bell Labs' Murray Hill anechoic chamber
- Bell System Memorial
- Google maps satellite view of the Murray Hill Facility
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