Born on December 23
The First Transistor
The tiny switch inside everything.
Next: December 23, 2026
Where it comes from
On 23 December 1947, at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the United States, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain showed their managers a small slab of germanium touched by two closely spaced gold contacts. A signal fed into one contact came out of the other up to 100 times stronger.
How it's celebrated
There is no organised observance, but it is easy to mark: most things with a battery or a plug now depend on transistors. Visit a science or computing museum, take apart an old radio with a curious child, or send a card to the engineer who keeps your gadgets running.
Did you know
Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Bardeen won it again in 1972, the only person to receive the physics prize twice.
Read the full story of The First Transistor
Star sign
Capricorn · December 22 – January 19 · Earth sign
Patient and ambitious, climbing steadily to the top.