SOCI 235 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Claude Shannon, Roman Numerals, Bell Labs
8 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
SOCI 235 – Technology and Society
Generation of New Technology 5.0: The Organization of R&D → BELL LABS – September 27th
R&D = integral to commercial performance but organization can be a challenge
• How should performance be evaluated where there is so much uncertainty?
• How should projects be evaluated and decisions on funding made where there is so
much uncertainty?
• How can an adequate information flow be ensured between the users of the technology
being created and the researchers generating it?
Bell Labs
• Initially a department of AT&T, turned into a separate company in 1925, 50% owned by
AT&T, and 50% owned by Western Electric
• AT&T transmitted calls over longer distances, local companies owned by AT&T provided
local service
• Projects were funded by contract with either 2 owning companies or with local
telephone companies
• Late 1960s – 5, eployees, iludig , Ph. D’s
• Core departments in physics, chemistry, and mathematics – the basic sciences
• Immensely successful – generated a number of Nobel prizes for work done at Bell labs
from opening to present
Major innovations by Bell Labs:
• Transistors and transistor technology
• Use of binary system in message transmission and related to this the shift from digital to
analog transmission
• Communication satellites
• Lasers and optical fibers
• Mobile cell system
Labs were given contracts to address technical problems:
• Loss of signal over long transmission lines
• Absence of a ring tone
• Absence of a phone hang up hook
• Effects of atmospheric disturbances when calls were sent via radio waves;
• Managing growth in numbers and roots of calls for billing purposes
• Meeting 40-year durability standard including responding to effect of termites, fungus,
rodents, wind, salt, worms, etc. → challenges to components of the system
o People focused on research specifically related to product of existing
technologies
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Generation of new technology 5. 0: the organization of r&d bell labs september 27th. Initially a department of at&t, turned into a separate company in 1925, 50% owned by. D"s: core departments in physics, chemistry, and mathematics the basic sciences. Immensely successful generated a number of nobel prizes for work done at bell labs from opening to present. Major innovations by bell labs: transistors and transistor technology, use of binary system in message transmission and related to this the shift from digital to analog transmission, communication satellites, lasers and optical fibers, mobile cell system. Challenges to components of the system: people focused on research specifically related to product of existing technologies. Claude shannon: recruited into mathematics group before ww2, worked on automatic firing, and cryptography, after war, worked on use of the binary system in switch from analog to digital communication, to make this system work, he developed, 1.
