Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age (1997)

The solid-state amplifier, whose coinage as "transistor" is one of many intriguing stories the authors include in this history of the device's invention, merits comparison to the wheel, if only by the criterion that every person relies on both every day. The mother of invention was the vacuum tube, bulky, electricity hungry, and breakable, and physicists at Bell Labs furrowed their brows to come up with something more reliable. The solution involved the interaction between electric fields and solid materials of varying electrical conductivity, in which lies the engaging tale involving serendipity, professional competition, and theoretical breakthroughs culminating in the moment of Eureka in late 1947.

The three principals who received the Nobel Prize for the transistor were not the best-oiled machine in history, and their biographies, which the authors intertwine with the technical developments, demonstrate the action of scientific ambition and hope for future riches in the creation of revolutionary inventions. The authorial team, a physicist and a historian, combine their strengths to present an accessible work worth most libraries' attention.

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