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Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development
company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...
owned by multinational company
Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
. With headquarters located in Murray Hill,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, the company operates several laboratories in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and around the world. Researchers working at Bell Laboratories are credited with the development of
radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...
, the
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
, the
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...
, the
photovoltaic cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physics, physical and Chemical substance, chemical phenomenon.charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD),
information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...
, the
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
operating system, and the programming languages B, C,
C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
, S,
SNOBOL SNOBOL ("StriNg Oriented and symBOlic Language") is a series of programming languages developed between 1962 and 1967 at AT&T Bell Laboratories by David J. Farber, Ralph E. Griswold and Ivan P. Polonsky, culminating in SNOBOL4. It was one of ...
,
AWK AWK (''awk'') is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it is a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems. The AWK lang ...
,
AMPL AMPL (A Mathematical Programming Language) is an algebraic modeling language to describe and solve high-complexity problems for large-scale mathematical computing (i.e., large-scale optimization and scheduling-type problems). It was developed b ...
, and others. Nine
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
s have been awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories. Bell Labs had its origin in the complex corporate organization of the
Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundr ...
telephone conglomerate. In the late 19th century, the laboratory began as the Western Electric Engineering Department, located at 463 West Street in New York City. In 1925, after years of conducting research and development under
Western Electric The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
, a Bell subsidiary, the Engineering Department was reformed into Bell Telephone Laboratories and placed under the shared ownership of the
American Telephone & Telegraph Company AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
(AT&T) and Western Electric. In the 1960s the laboratory was moved to
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
. It was acquired by Nokia in 2016.


Origin and historical locations


Bell's personal research after the telephone

In 1880, when the
French government The Government of France ( French: ''Gouvernement français''), officially the Government of the French Republic (''Gouvernement de la République française'' ), exercises executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister, who ...
awarded
Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...
the
Volta Prize The Volta Prize (French: ''prix Volta'') was originally established by Napoleon III during the Second French Empire in 1852 to honor Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist noted for developing the electric battery.John L. Davis. Artisans and savants ...
of 50,000
francs The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...
for the
invention of the telephone The invention of the telephone was the culmination of work done by more than one individual, and led to an array of lawsuits relating to the patent claims of several individuals and numerous companies. Early development The concept of th ...
(equivalent to about US$10,000 at the time, or about $ now), he used the award to fund the
Volta Laboratory The Volta Laboratory (also known as the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory, the Bell Carriage House and the Bell Laboratory) and the Volta Bureau were created in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. by Alexander Graham Bell.(19/20th-century scientist and ...
(also known as the "Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory") in Washington, D.C. in collaboration with
Sumner Tainter Charles Sumner Tainter (April 25, 1854 – April 20, 1940) was an American scientific instrument maker, engineer and inventor, best known for his collaborations with Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, Alexander's father-in-law Gardiner Hub ...
and Bell's cousin
Chichester Bell Chichester Alexander Bell (1848–1924) was an American chemist and inventor. He was a first cousin of Alexander Graham Bell, and instrumental in developing improved versions of the phonograph.American History MuseumCharles Sumner Tainter Papers, ...
.Bruce, Robert V. ''Bell: Alexander Bell and the Conquest of Solitude''. Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...
, 1990. .
The laboratory was variously known as the ''Volta Bureau'', the ''Bell Carriage House'', the ''Bell Laboratory'' and the ''Volta Laboratory''. It focused on the analysis, recording, and transmission of sound. Bell used his considerable profits from the laboratory for further research and education to permit the " ncreaseddiffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf": resulting in the founding of the Volta Bureau (c. 1887) which was located at Bell's father's house at 1527 35th Street N.W. in Washington, D.C. Its carriage house became their headquarters in 1889. In 1893, Bell constructed a new building close by at 1537 35th Street N.W., specifically to house the lab. This building was declared a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1972. and   After the invention of the telephone, Bell maintained a relatively distant role with the Bell System as a whole, but continued to pursue his own personal research interests.


Early antecedent

The Bell Patent Association was formed by
Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...
, Thomas Sanders, and
Gardiner Hubbard Gardiner Greene Hubbard (August 25, 1822 – December 11, 1897) was an American lawyer, financier, and community leader. He was a founder and first president of the National Geographic Society; a founder and the first president of the Bell Telep ...
when filing the first patents for the telephone in 1876. Bell Telephone Company, the first telephone company, was formed a year later. It later became a part of the American Bell Telephone Company. In 1884, the
American Bell Telephone Company The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1877, by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company – the New Englan ...
created the Mechanical Department from the Electrical and Patent Department formed a year earlier.
American Telephone & Telegraph Company AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
(AT&T) and its own subsidiary company, took control of American Bell and the Bell System by 1889. American Bell held a controlling interest in Western Electric (which was the manufacturing arm of the business) whereas AT&T was doing research into the service providers.


Formal organization and location changes

In 1896, Western Electric bought property at 463 West Street to station their manufacturers and engineers who had been supplying AT&T with their product. This included everything from telephones,
telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syst ...
switches, and transmission equipment. On January 1, 1925, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. was organized to consolidate the development and research activities in the communication field and allied sciences for the Bell System. Ownership was evenly shared between
Western Electric The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
and AT&T. The new company had existing personnel of 3600 engineers, scientists, and support staff. In addition to the existing research facilities of 400,000 square feet of space, its space was extended with a new building on about one quarter of a city block.Telephony, Volume 87(5), p.20, January 31, 1925 The first chairman of the board of directors was
John J. Carty John Joseph Carty (April 14, 1861 – December 27, 1932) was an American electrical engineer and a major contributor to the development of Utility pole, telephone wires and related technology. He was a recipient of the Edison Medal. As Chief En ...
, the vice-president of AT&T, and the first president was
Frank B. Jewett Frank Baldwin Jewett (; September 5, 1879 – November 18, 1949) worked as an engineer for American Telegraph and Telephone where his work demonstrated transatlantic radio telephony using a vacuum-tube transmitter. He was also a physicist and ...
, also a board member, who stayed there until 1940. The operations were directed by E. B. Craft, executive vice-president, and formerly chief engineer at Western Electric. By the early 1940s, Bell Labs engineers and scientists had begun to move to other locations away from the congestion and environmental distractions of New York City, and in 1967 Bell Laboratories headquarters was officially relocated to Murray Hill, New Jersey. Among the later Bell Laboratories locations in New Jersey were Holmdel, Crawford Hill, the Deal Test Site,
Freehold Freehold may refer to: In real estate *Freehold (law), the tenure of property in fee simple *Customary freehold, a form of feudal tenure of land in England *Parson's freehold, where a Church of England rector or vicar of holds title to benefice p ...
, Lincroft, Long Branch, Middletown,
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
,
Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...
,
Piscataway Piscataway may refer to: *Piscataway people, a Native American ethnic group native to the southern Mid-Atlantic States *Piscataway language *Piscataway, Maryland, an unincorporated community *Piscataway, New Jersey, a township *Piscataway Creek, Ma ...
, Red Bank,
Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...
, and Whippany. Of these, Murray Hill and Crawford Hill remain in existence (the Piscataway and Red Bank locations were transferred to and are now operated by
Telcordia Technologies iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...
and the Whippany site was purchased by
Bayer Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...
). The largest grouping of people in the company was in
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
, at
Naperville Naperville ( ) is a city in DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage and Will County, Illinois, Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is in the Chicago metro area, west of the city. Naperville was founded in 1831 by Joseph Naper. The city was ...
- Lisle, in the Chicago area, which had the largest concentration of employees (about 11,000) prior to 2001. There also were groups of employees in
Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
, Indiana;
Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...
;
North Andover, Massachusetts North Andover is an affluent town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the 2020 census the population was 30,915. History Native Americans inhabited what is now northeastern Massachusetts for thousands of years prior to European c ...
;
Allentown, Pennsylvania Allentown (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Allenschteddel'', ''Allenschtadt'', or ''Ellsdaun'') is a city in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The city has a population of 125,845 as of the 2020 United ...
;
Reading, Pennsylvania Reading ( ; Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Reddin'') is a city in and the county seat of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city had a population of 95,112 as of the 2020 census and is the fourth-largest city in Pennsylvania after Philade ...
; and
Breinigsville, Pennsylvania Breinigsville is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 7,495. The town is part of Upper Macungie Township and is located approximately southwe ...
; Burlington, North Carolina (1950s–1970s, moved to Greensboro 1980s) and
Westminster, Colorado The City of Westminster is a home rule municipality located in Adams and Jefferson counties, Colorado, United States. The city population was 116,317 at the 2020 United States Census with 71,240 residing in Adams County and 45,077 residing in J ...
. Since 2001, many of the former locations have been scaled down or closed. The Holmdel site, a 1.9 million square foot structure set on 473 acres, was closed in 2007. The mirrored-glass building was designed by
Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...
. In August 2013, Somerset Development bought the building, intending to redevelop it into a mixed commercial and residential project. A 2012 article expressed doubt on the success of the newly named Bell Works site, but several large tenants had announced plans to move in through 2016 and 2017.


Building Complex Location (code) information, past and present

* Chester (CH) - North Road,
Chester, NJ Chester Township is a township in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township's population was 7,838, reflecting an increase of 556 (+7.6%) from the 7,282 counted in the 2000 Census, which had ...
(began 1930, outdoor test site for small size telephone pole preservation, timber-related equipment, cable laying mechanism for the first undersea voice cable, research for loop transmission, Lucent donated land for park) * Crawford Hill (HOH) - Crawfords Corner Road, Holmdel, NJ (built 1930s, currently as exhibit and building sold,
horn antenna A horn antenna or microwave horn is an antenna that consists of a flaring metal waveguide shaped like a horn to direct radio waves in a beam. Horns are widely used as antennas at UHF and microwave frequencies, above 300 MHz. They are us ...
used for "Big Bang" theory) * Holmdel (HO) - 101 Crawfords Corner, Holmdel, NJ (built 1959–1962, older structures in the 1920s, currently as private building called Bell Works, discovered extraterrestrial radio emissions, undersea cable research, satellite transmissions systems Telstar 3 and 4) * Indian Hill (IH) - 2000 Naperville Road, Naperville, IL (built 1966, currently Nokia, developed switching technology and systems) * Murray Hill (MH) - 600 Mountain Ave, Murray Hill, NJ (built 1941–1945, currently Nokia, developed transistor, UNIX operating system and C programming language,
anechoic chamber An anechoic chamber (''an-echoic'' meaning "non-reflective") is a room designed to stop reflections of either sound or electromagnetic waves. They are also often isolated from energy entering from their surroundings. This combination means ...
, several building sections demolished) * Short Hills (HL) - 101-103 JFK Parkway, Short Hills, NJ (Various departments such as Accounts Payable, IT Purchasing, HR Personnel, Payroll, Telecom and the Government group, and Unix Administration Systems Computer Center. Buildings exist without the overhead walkway between the two buildings and two different companies are located from banking and business analytics.) * Summit (SF) - 190 River Road, Summit, NJ (building was part of the UNIX Software Operations and became UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. In December 1991, USL combined with Novell. Location is a banking company.) * West St ( ) - 463 West Street, New York, NY (built 1898, 1925 until December 1966 as Bell Labs headquarters, experimental talking movies, wave nature of matter, radar) * Whippany (WH) - 67 Whippany Road, Whippany, NJ (built 1920s, demolished and portion building as Bayer, performed military research and development, research and development in radar, in guidance for the
Nike missile The United States Army's Nike Ajax was the world's first operational guided surface-to-air missile (SAM), entering service in 1954. Nike Ajax was designed to attack conventional bomber aircraft flying at high subsonic speeds and altitudes above ...
, and in underwater sound,
Telstar 1 Telstar 1 was a communications satellite launched by NASA on July 10, 1962. It was the satellite that allowed the first live broadcast of television images between the United States and Europe. Telstar 1 remained active for only 7 months before i ...
, wireless technologies)


Bell Labs locations listed in 1974 corporate directory

* Allentown - Allentown, PA * Atlanta - Norcross, GA * Centennial Park - Piscataway, NJ * Chester - Chester, NJ * Columbus - Columbus, OH * Crawford Hill - Holmdel, NJ * Denver - Denver, CO * Grand Forks-MSR - Cavalier, ND issile Site Radar (MSR) Site* Grand Forks-PAR - Cavalier, ND erimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR) Site* Guilford Center - Greensboro, NC * Holmdel - Holmdel, NJ * Indianapolis - Indianapolis, IN * Indian Hill - Naperville, IL * Kwajalein - San Francisco, CA * Madison - Madison, NJ * Merrimack Valley - North Andover, MA * Murray Hill - Murray Hill, NJ * Raritan River Center - Piscataway, NJ * Reading - Reading, PA * Union - Union, NJ * Warren Service Center - Warren, NJ * Whippany - Whippany, NJ


Discoveries and developments

Bell Laboratories was, and is, regarded by many as the premier research facility of its type, developing a wide range of revolutionary technologies, including
radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...
, the
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
, the
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...
,
information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...
, the operating system
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
, the programming languages C and
C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
,
solar cells A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physics, physical and Chemical substance, chemical phenomenon.charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD), and many other optical, wireless, and wired communications technologies and systems.


1920s

In 1924, Bell Labs physicist Walter A. Shewhart proposed the
control chart Control charts is a graph used in production control to determine whether quality and manufacturing processes are being controlled under stable conditions. (ISO 7870-1) The hourly status is arranged on the graph, and the occurrence of abnormalit ...
as a method to determine when a process was in a state of statistical control. Shewhart's methods were the basis for
statistical process control Statistical process control (SPC) or statistical quality control (SQC) is the application of statistical methods to monitor and control the quality of a production process. This helps to ensure that the process operates efficiently, producing m ...
(SPC): the use of statistically based tools and techniques to manage and improve processes. This was the origin of the modern quality movement, including Six Sigma. In 1926, the laboratories invented an early example synchronous-sound motion picture system, in competition with
Fox Movietone Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1986, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Australia and New Zealand until 197 ...
and
DeForest Phonofilm Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s. Introduction In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, ...
. In 1927, a Bell team headed by
Herbert E. Ives Herbert Eugene Ives (July 31, 1882 – November 13, 1953) was a scientist and engineer who headed the development of facsimile and television systems at AT&T in the first half of the twentieth century. He is best known for the 1938 Ives–Stilwel ...
successfully transmitted long-distance 128-line television images of
Secretary of Commerce The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...
Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
from Washington to New York. In 1928 the
thermal noise A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example ...
in a resistor was first measured by John B. Johnson, and
Harry Nyquist Harry Nyquist (, ; February 7, 1889 – April 4, 1976) was a Swedish-American physicist and electronic engineer who made important contributions to communication theory. Personal life Nyquist was born in the village Nilsby of the parish Stora Ki ...
provided the theoretical analysis; this is now termed ''Johnson noise''. During the 1920s, the
one-time pad In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is not smaller than the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a ran ...
cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...
was invented by
Gilbert Vernam Gilbert Sandford Vernam (April 3, 1890 – February 7, 1960) was a Worcester Polytechnic Institute 1914 graduate and AT&T Bell Labs engineer who, in 1917, invented an additive polyalphabetic stream cipher and later co-invented an automated on ...
and
Joseph Mauborgne Joseph Oswald Mauborgne (February 26, 1881 – June 7, 1971) co-invented the one-time pad with Gilbert Vernam of Bell Labs. In 1914 he published the first recorded solution of the Playfair cipher. Mauborgne became a Major General in the Uni ...
at the laboratories. Bell Labs'
Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American people, American mathematician, electrical engineering, electrical engineer, and cryptography, cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-o ...
later proved that it is unbreakable.


1930s

In 1931, a foundation for
radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...
was laid by
Karl Jansky Karl Guthe Jansky (October 22, 1905 – February 14, 1950) was an American physicist and radio engineer who in April 1933 first announced his discovery of radio waves emanating from the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius. He is considere ...
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 A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...
. In 1931 and 1932, experimental high fidelity, long playing, and even stereophonic recordings were made by the labs of the
Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription ...
, conducted by
Leopold Stokowski Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his appeara ...
. In 1933, stereo signals were transmitted live from
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
to Washington, D.C. In 1937, the
vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...
, an electronic speech compression device, or codec, and the
Voder The Bell Telephone Laboratory's Voder (from ''Voice Operating Demonstrator'') was the first attempt to electronically synthesize human speech by breaking it down into its acoustic components. It was invented by Homer Dudley in 1937–1938 and deve ...
, the first electronic
speech synthesizer Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or Computer hardware, hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system conve ...
, were developed and demonstrated by
Homer Dudley Homer W. Dudley (14 November 1896– 18 September 1980) was a pioneering electronic and acoustic engineer who created the first electronic voice synthesizer for Bell Labs in the 1930s and led the development of a method of sending secure voice tra ...
, the Voder being demonstrated at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Bell researcher
Clinton Davisson Clinton Joseph Davisson (October 22, 1881 – February 1, 1958) was an American physicist who won the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of electron diffraction in the famous Davisson–Germer experiment. Davisson shared the Nobel Priz ...
shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with
George Paget Thomson Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS (; 3 May 189210 September 1975) was a British physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognized for his discovery of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction. Education and early life Thomson ...
for the discovery of
electron diffraction Electron diffraction refers to the bending of electron beams around atomic structures. This behaviour, typical for waves, is applicable to electrons due to the wave–particle duality stating that electrons behave as both particles and waves. Si ...
, which helped lay the foundation for
solid-state electronics Solid-state electronics means semiconductor electronics: electronic equipment using semiconductor devices such as transistors, diodes and integrated circuits (ICs). The term is also used as an adjective for devices in which semiconductor electr ...
.


1940s

In the early 1940s, the
photovoltaic cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physics, physical and Chemical substance, chemical phenomenon.Russell Ohl Russell Shoemaker Ohl (January 30, 1898 – March 20, 1987) was an American scientist who is generally recognized for patenting the modern solar cell (, "Light sensitive device"). Ohl was a notable semiconductor researcher prior to the invention o ...
. In 1943, Bell developed
SIGSALY SIGSALY (also known as the X System, Project X, Ciphony I, and the Green Hornet) was a secure speech system used in World War II for the highest-level Allied communications. It pioneered a number of digital communications concepts, including the ...
, the first digital scrambled speech transmission system, used by the Allies in World War II. The British wartime codebreaker
Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...
visited the labs at this time, working on speech encryption and meeting
Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American people, American mathematician, electrical engineering, electrical engineer, and cryptography, cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-o ...
. Bell Labs Quality Assurance Department gave the world and the United States such statisticians as Walter A. Shewhart,
W. Edwards Deming William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical ...
,
Harold F. Dodge Harold French Dodge (January 23, 1893 in Lowell, Massachusetts – December 10, 1976) was one of the principal architects of the science of statistical quality control. His father was the photographer William H. Dodge. Harold Dodge is univers ...
,
George D. Edwards George DeForest Edwards (1890 – 1974) was a 20th-century quality control expert most notable for having served as the first president of American Society for Quality Control. Edwards' reputation in quality control had been established by his w ...
, Harry Romig, R. L. Jones, Paul Olmstead, E.G.D. Paterson, and
Mary N. Torrey Mary Newton Torrey (February 2, 1910 - January 7, 1998) was an American mathematical statistician and quality control specialist for Bell Laboratories. With Harold F. Dodge at Bell Labs, she was an early contributor to the theory of acceptance s ...
. During World War II, Emergency Technical Committee – Quality Control, drawn mainly from Bell Labs' statisticians, was instrumental in advancing Army and Navy ammunition acceptance and material sampling procedures. In 1947, the
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
, probably the most important invention developed by Bell Laboratories, was invented by
John Bardeen John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...
,
Walter Houser Brattain Walter Houser Brattain (; February 10, 1902 – October 13, 1987) was an American physicist at Bell Labs who, along with fellow scientists John Bardeen and William Shockley, invented the point-contact transistor in December 1947. They shared t ...
, and
William Bradford Shockley William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, Walter Brattain. The three ...
(and who subsequently shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956). In 1947,
Richard Hamming Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer engineering and telecommunications. His contributions include the Hamming code (which makes use of a Ha ...
invented
Hamming code In computer science and telecommunication, Hamming codes are a family of linear error-correcting codes. Hamming codes can detect one-bit and two-bit errors, or correct one-bit errors without detection of uncorrected errors. By contrast, the sim ...
s for
error detection and correction In information theory and coding theory with applications in computer science and telecommunication, error detection and correction (EDAC) or error control are techniques that enable reliable delivery of digital data over unreliable communi ...
. For patent reasons, the result was not published until 1950. In 1948, "
A Mathematical Theory of Communication "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" is an article by mathematician Claude E. Shannon published in '' Bell System Technical Journal'' in 1948. It was renamed ''The Mathematical Theory of Communication'' in the 1949 book of the same name, a sm ...
", one of the founding works in
information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...
, was published by
Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American people, American mathematician, electrical engineering, electrical engineer, and cryptography, cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-o ...
in the ''
Bell System Technical Journal The ''Bell Labs Technical Journal'' is the in-house scientific journal for scientists of Nokia Bell Labs, published yearly by the IEEE society. The managing editor is Charles Bahr. The journal was originally established as the ''Bell System Techn ...
''. It built in part on earlier work in the field by Bell researchers
Harry Nyquist Harry Nyquist (, ; February 7, 1889 – April 4, 1976) was a Swedish-American physicist and electronic engineer who made important contributions to communication theory. Personal life Nyquist was born in the village Nilsby of the parish Stora Ki ...
and
Ralph Hartley Ralph Vinton Lyon Hartley (November 30, 1888 – May 1, 1970) was an American electronics researcher. He invented the Hartley oscillator and the Hartley transform, and contributed to the foundations of information theory. Biography Hartley was ...
, but it greatly extended these. Bell Labs 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 "Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems" is a paper published in 1949 by Claude Shannon discussing cryptography from the viewpoint of information theory. It is one of the foundational treatments (arguably ''the'' foundational treatment) of modern c ...
''.


Calculators

* Model I: A
complex number calculator George Robert Stibitz (April 30, 1904 – January 31, 1995) was a Bell Labs researcher internationally recognized as one of the fathers of the modern digital computer. He was known for his work in the 1930s and 1940s on the realization of Boolea ...
, completed in 1939 and put into operation in 1940, for doing calculations of
complex number In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted , called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation i^= -1; every complex number can be expressed in the form ...
s. * Model II: Relay Computer / Relay Interpolator, September 1943, for interpolating data points of flight profiles (needed for performance testing of a gun director). This model introduced error detection (self checking). * Model III: Ballistic Computer, June 1944, for calculations of ballistic trajectories * Model IV: Error Detector Mark II, March 1945, improved ballistic computer *
Model V The Model V was among the early electromechanical general purpose computers, designed by George Stibitz and built by Bell Telephone Laboratories, operational in 1946. Only two machines were built: first one was installed at National Advisory Com ...
: General-purpose electromechanical computer, of which two were built, July 1946 and February 1947 * Model VI: 1949, an enhanced Model V


1950s

The 1950s also saw developments based upon
information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...
. The central development was
binary code A binary code represents text, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system. The two-symbol system used is often "0" and "1" from the binary number system. The binary code assigns a pattern of binary digits, also ...
systems. Efforts concentrated on the prime mission of supporting the Bell System with engineering advances, including the N-carrier system, TD
microwave radio relay Microwave transmission is the transmission of information by electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the microwave frequency range of 300MHz to 300GHz(1 m - 1 mm wavelength) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Microwave signals are normally lim ...
,
direct distance dialing Direct distance dialing (DDD) is a telecommunication service feature in North America by which a caller may, without operator assistance, call any other user outside the local calling area. Direct dialing by subscribers typically requires extra d ...
, E-
repeater In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Some ...
,
wire spring relay A wire spring relay is a type of relay, that has springs made from drawn wires of nickel silver, rather than cut from flat sheet metal as in the flat-spring relay. This class of relays provided manufacturing and operating advantages over previous d ...
, and the
Number Five Crossbar Switching System The Number Five Crossbar Switching System (5XB switch) is a telephone switch for telephone exchanges designed by Bell Labs and manufactured by Western Electric starting in 1947. It was used in the Bell System principally as a Class 5 telephone sw ...
. In 1952,
William Gardner Pfann William Gardner Pfann (October 27, 1917 – October 22, 1982) was an inventor and materials scientist with Bell Labs. Pfann is known for his development of zone melting which is essential to the semiconductor industry. As stated in an offici ...
revealed the method of
zone melting Zone melting (or zone refining, or floating-zone method, or floating-zone technique) is a group of similar methods of purifying crystals, in which a narrow region of a crystal is melted, and this molten zone is moved along the crystal. The molte ...
, which enabled semiconductor purification and level doping. In 1953,
Maurice Karnaugh Maurice Karnaugh (; October 4, 1924 – November 8, 2022) was an American physicist, mathematician, computer scientist, and inventor known for the Karnaugh map used in Boolean algebra. Career Karnaugh studied mathematics and physics at City Co ...
developed the
Karnaugh map The Karnaugh map (KM or K-map) is a method of simplifying Boolean algebra expressions. Maurice Karnaugh introduced it in 1953 as a refinement of Edward W. Veitch's 1952 Veitch chart, which was a rediscovery of Allan Marquand's 1881 ''logica ...
, used for managing of Boolean algebraic expressions. In 1954, the first modern
solar cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.
was invented at Bell Laboratories. In 1956 TAT-1, the first
transatlantic communications cable A transatlantic telecommunications cable is a submarine communications cable connecting one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, each cable was a single wire. After mid-century, coaxial cable came into use ...
, was laid between Scotland and Newfoundland in a joint effort by AT&T, Bell Laboratories, and British and Canadian telephone companies. In 1957,
Max Mathews Max Vernon Mathews (November 13, 1926 in Columbus, Nebraska, USA – April 21, 2011 in San Francisco, CA, USA) was a pioneer of computer music. Biography Mathews studied electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology and the Ma ...
created
MUSIC Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, one of the first computer programs to play
electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...
.
Robert C. Prim Robert Clay Prim (born September 25, 1921 in Sweetwater, Texas, Sweetwater, Texas) is an American mathematician and computer scientist. In 1941, Prim received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, where he also ...
and
Joseph Kruskal Joseph Bernard Kruskal, Jr. (; January 29, 1928 – September 19, 2010) was an American mathematician, statistician, computer scientist and psychometrician. Personal life Kruskal was born to a Jewish family in New York City to a successful fur ...
developed new
greedy algorithm A greedy algorithm is any algorithm that follows the problem-solving heuristic of making the locally optimal choice at each stage. In many problems, a greedy strategy does not produce an optimal solution, but a greedy heuristic can yield locally ...
s that revolutionized computer network design. In 1958, a technical paper by
Arthur Schawlow Arthur Leonard Schawlow (May 5, 1921 – April 28, 1999) was an American physicist and co-inventor of the laser with Charles Townes. His central insight, which Townes overlooked, was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to take maser act ...
and
Charles Hard Townes Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated wi ...
first described the
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...
. In 1959,
Mohamed M. Atalla Mohamed M. Atalla ( ar, محمد عطاالله; August 4, 1924 – December 30, 2009) was an Egyptian-American engineer, physicist, cryptographer, inventor and entrepreneur. He was a semiconductor pioneer who made important contributions to ...
and
Dawon Kahng Dawon Kahng ( ko, 강대원; May 4, 1931 – May 13, 1992) was a Korean-American electrical engineer and inventor, known for his work in solid-state electronics. He is best known for inventing the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effe ...
invented the metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). The MOSFET has achieved electronic hegemony and sustains the
large-scale integration An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny M ...
(LSI) of circuits underlying today's
information society An information society is a society where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid inf ...
.


1960s

On October 1, 1960, the Kwajalein Field Station was announced as a location for the NIKE-ZEUS test program. Mr. R. W. Benfer was the first director to arrive shortly on October 5 for the program. Bell Labs designed many of the major system elements and conducted fundamental investigations of phase-controlled scanning antenna arrays. In December 1960,
Ali Javan Ali Javan ( fa, علی جوان, Ali Javān; December 26, 1926 – September 12, 2016) was an Iranian-American physicist and inventor. He was the first to propose the concept of the gas laser in 1959 at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. A successf ...
, PhD physicist from the university of Teheran, Iran with help by
Rolf Seebach Rolf is a male given name and a surname. It originates in the Germanic name ''Hrolf'', itself a contraction of ''Hrodwulf'' ( Rudolf), a conjunction of the stem words ''hrod'' ("renown") + ''wulf'' ("wolf"). The Old Norse cognate is ''Hrólfr''. A ...
and his associates
William Bennett William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office of ...
and Donald Heriot, successfully operated the first
gas laser A gas laser is a laser in which an electric current is discharged through a gas to produce coherent light. The gas laser was the first continuous-light laser and the first laser to operate on the principle of converting electrical energy to a lase ...
, the first continuous-light laser, operating at an unprecedented accuracy and color purity. In 1962, the
electret microphone An electret microphone is a type of electrostatic capacitor-based microphone, which eliminates the need for a polarizing power supply by using a permanently charged material. An ''electret'' is a stable dielectric material with a permanently em ...
was invented by Gerhard M. Sessler and James E. West. Also in 1962,
John R. Pierce John Robinson Pierce (March 27, 1910 – April 2, 2002), was an American engineer and author. He did extensive work concerning radio communication, microwave technology, computer music, psychoacoustics, and science fiction. Additionally to his ...
's vision of
communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...
s was realized by the launch of
Telstar Telstar is the name of various communications satellites. The first two Telstar satellites were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 launched on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the fir ...
. On July 10, 1962, the Telstar spacecraft was launched into orbit by NASA and it was designed and built by Bell Laboratories. The first worldwide television broadcast was July 23, 1962 with a press conference by President Kennedy. In Spring 1964, the building of an electronic switching systems center was planned at Bell Laboratories near Naperville, Illinois. The building in 1966 would be called Indian Hill, and development work from former electronic switching organization at Holmdel and Systems Equipment Engineering organization would occupy the laboratory with engineers from Western Electric Hawthorne Works. Scheduled for work were about 1,200 people when completed in 1966, and peaked at 11,000 before October 2001 Lucent Technologies downsizing occurred. In 1964, the
carbon dioxide laser The carbon-dioxide laser (CO2 laser) was one of the earliest gas lasers to be developed. It was invented by Kumar Patel of Bell Labs in 1964 and is still one of the most useful types of laser. Carbon-dioxide lasers are the highest-power continuou ...
was invented by
Kumar Patel Chandra Kumar Naranbhai Patel (born 2 July 1938) is an electrical engineer. He developed the carbon dioxide laser in 1963; it is now widely used in industry for cutting and engraving a wide range of materials like plastic and wood. Because th ...
and the discovery/operation of the Nd:YAG laser was demonstrated by J.E. Geusic ''et al.'' Experiments by
Myriam Sarachik Myriam Paula Sarachik (August 8, 1933October 7, 2021) was a Belgian-born American experimental physicist who specialized in low-temperature solid state physics. From 1996, she was a distinguished professor of physics at the City College of New ...
provided the first data that confirmed the
Kondo effect In physics, the Kondo effect describes the scattering of conduction electrons in a metal due to magnetic impurities, resulting in a characteristic change i.e. a minimum in electrical resistivity with temperature. The cause of the effect was fir ...
. The research of
Philip W. Anderson Philip Warren Anderson (December 13, 1923 – March 29, 2020) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate. Anderson made contributions to the theories of localization, antiferromagnetism, symmetry breaking (including a paper in 1 ...
into electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems led to improved understanding of metals and insulators for which he was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
in 1977. In 1965, Penzias and Wilson discovered the
cosmic microwave background In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all spac ...
, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. Frank W. Sinden, Edward E. Zajac,
Ken Knowlton Kenneth Charles Knowlton (June 6, 1931 – June 16, 2022) was an American computer graphics pioneer, artist, mosaicist and portraitist. In 1963, while working at Bell Labs, he developed the BEFLIX programming language for creating bitmap comput ...
, and
A. Michael Noll A. Michael Noll (born 1939, Newark, New Jersey) is an American engineer, and professor emeritus at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He served as dean of the Annenberg School from 1992 t ...
made computer-animated movies during the early to mid-1960s.
Ken Knowlton Kenneth Charles Knowlton (June 6, 1931 – June 16, 2022) was an American computer graphics pioneer, artist, mosaicist and portraitist. In 1963, while working at Bell Labs, he developed the BEFLIX programming language for creating bitmap comput ...
invented the computer animation language
BEFLIX The name derives from a combination of ''Bell Flicks''. Ken Knowlton used BEFLIX to create animated films for educational and engineering purposes. He also collaborated with the artist Stan Vanderbeek at Bell Labs to create a series of computer-an ...
. The first digital computer art was created in 1962 by Noll. In 1966,
orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing In telecommunications, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a type of digital transmission and a method of encoding digital data on multiple carrier frequencies. OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for wideband digital commun ...
(OFDM), a key technology in wireless services, was developed and patented by R. W. Chang. In December 1966, the New York City site was sold and became the
Westbeth Artists Community Westbeth Artists Housing is a nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing affordable living and working space for artists and arts organizations in New York City. The complex comprises the full city block bounded by West, Be ...
complex. In 1968,
molecular beam epitaxy Molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) is an epitaxy method for thin-film deposition of single crystals. MBE is widely used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, including transistors, and it is considered one of the fundamental tools for the devel ...
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,
Dennis Ritchie Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is most well-known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B p ...
and
Ken Thompson Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programmi ...
created the computer operating system
UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
for the support of telecommunication switching systems as well as general-purpose computing. Also, in 1969, the
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD) was invented by Willard Boyle and
George E. Smith George Elwood Smith (born May 10, 1930) is an American scientist, applied physicist, and co-inventor of the charge-coupled device (CCD). He was awarded a one-quarter share in the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for "the invention of an imaging semico ...
, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009. From 1969 to 1971, Aaron Marcus, the first graphic designer involved with computer graphics, researched, designed, and programmed a prototype interactive page-layout system for the Picturephone.


1970s

The 1970s and 1980s saw more and more computer-related inventions at the Bell Laboratories as part of the
personal computing A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...
revolution. The 1970s also saw a major central office technology evolve from crossbar electromechanical relay-based technology and discrete transistor logic to Bell Labs-developed thick film hybrid and
transistor–transistor logic Transistor–transistor logic (TTL) is a logic family built from bipolar junction transistors. Its name signifies that transistors perform both the logic function (the first "transistor") and the amplifying function (the second "transistor"), as opp ...
(TTL), stored program-controlled switching systems; 1A/ #4 TOLL Electronic Switching Systems (ESS) and 2A Local Central Offices produced at the Bell Labs Naperville and Western Electric Lisle, Illinois facilities. This technology evolution dramatically reduced floor space needs. The new ESS also came with its own diagnostic software that needed only a switchman and several frame technicians to maintain. About 1970, the coax-22 cable was developed by Bell Labs. This coax cable with 22-strands allowed a total capacity of 132,000 phone calls. Previously, there was a 12-strand coax cable used for "L" carrier systems. Both these types of cables were manufactured at Western Electrics' Baltimore Works facility on machines designed by a Western Electric Senior development engineer. In 1970,
A. Michael Noll A. Michael Noll (born 1939, Newark, New Jersey) is an American engineer, and professor emeritus at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He served as dean of the Annenberg School from 1992 t ...
invented a tactile, force-feedback system, coupled with interactive stereoscopic computer display. In 1971, an improved task priority system for computerized
telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syst ...
switching systems for telephone traffic was invented by
Erna Schneider Hoover Erna Schneider Hoover (born June 19, 1926) is an American mathematician notable for inventing a computerized telephone switching method which "revolutionized modern communication" according to several reports. It prevented system overloads by mon ...
, who received one of the first
software patent A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, libraries, user interface, or algorithm. Background A patent is a set of exclusionary rights granted by a state to a patent holder for a limited period of time, u ...
s for it. In 1972,
Dennis Ritchie Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is most well-known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B p ...
developed the compiled programming language C as a replacement for the interpreted language B, which was then used in a
worse is better Worse is better (also called the New Jersey style) is a term conceived by Richard P. Gabriel in an essay of the same name to describe the dynamics of software acceptance. It refers to the argument that software quality does not necessarily increas ...
rewrite of UNIX. Also, the language
AWK AWK (''awk'') is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it is a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems. The AWK lang ...
was designed and implemented by
Alfred Aho Alfred Vaino Aho (born August 9, 1941) is a Canadian computer scientist best known for his work on programming languages, compilers, and related algorithms, and his textbooks on the art and science of computer programming. Aho was elected into ...
,
Peter Weinberger Peter Jay Weinberger (born August 6, 1942) is a computer scientist best known for his early work at Bell Labs. He now works at Google. Weinberger was an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, graduating in 1964. He received his PhD in mathemati ...
, and
Brian Kernighan Brian Wilson Kernighan (; born 1942) is a Canadian computer scientist. He worked at Bell Labs and contributed to the development of Unix alongside Unix creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Kernighan's name became widely known through co-au ...
of Bell Laboratories. Also in 1972,
Marc Rochkind Marc J. Rochkind invented the Source Code Control System while working at Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007) ...
invented the
Source Code Control System Source Code Control System (SCCS) is a version control system designed to track changes in source code and other text files during the development of a piece of software. This allows the user to retrieve any of the previous versions of the origina ...
. In 1976,
optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...
systems were first tested in
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
and in 1980, the first single-chip
32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
, the
Bellmac 32 The Bellmac 32 is a microprocessor developed by Bell Labs' processor division in 1980, implemented using CMOS technology and was the first microprocessor that could move 32 bits in one clock cycle. The microprocessor contains 150,000 transistors ...
A was demonstrated. It went into production in 1982.


1980s

During the 1980s, the operating system ''
Plan 9 from Bell Labs Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system which originated from the Computing Science Research Center (CSRC) at Bell Labs in the mid-1980s and built on UNIX concepts first developed there in the late 1960s. Since 2000, Plan 9 has be ...
'' was developed extending the UNIX model. Also, the
Radiodrum The Radiodrum or radio-baton is a musical instrument played in three-dimensional space using two mallets (snare drum sticks with wires). It was developed at Bell Labs in the 1980s (and patented), originally to be a three-dimensional computer mou ...
, an electronic music instrument played in three space dimensions, was invented. In 1980, the TDMA digital cellular telephone technology was patented. The launching of the Bell Labs Fellows Award started in 1982 to recognize and honor scientists and engineers who have made outstanding and sustained R&D contributions at AT&T with a level of distinction. As of the 2021 inductees, only 336 people have received the honor. In 1982,
fractional quantum Hall effect The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2-dimensional (2D) electrons shows precisely quantized plateaus at fractional values of e^2/h. It is a property of a collective state in which elec ...
was discovered by
Horst Störmer Horst may refer to: Science * Horst (geology), a raised fault block bounded by normal faults or graben People * Horst (given name) * Horst (surname) * ter Horst, Dutch surname * van der Horst, Dutch surname Places Settlements Germany * Hor ...
and former Bell Laboratories researchers Robert B. Laughlin and
Daniel C. Tsui Daniel Chee Tsui (, born February 28, 1939) is a Chinese-born American physicist, Nobel laureate, and the Arthur Legrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus, at Princeton University. Tsui's areas of research include electrical prop ...
; they consequently won a Nobel Prize in 1998 for the discovery. In 1984, the first photoconductive antennas for picosecond electromagnetic radiation were demonstrated by Auston and others. This type of antenna became an important component in
terahertz time-domain spectroscopy In physics, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) is a spectroscopic technique in which the properties of matter are probed with short pulses of terahertz radiation. The generation and detection scheme is sensitive to the sample's effect on ...
. In 1984, Karmarkar's algorithm for linear programming was developed by mathematician Narendra Karmarkar. Also in 1984, Modification of Final Judgment, a divestiture agreement signed in 1982 with the American Federal government forced the break-up of AT&T: Bellcore (now iconectiv) 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.'' 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. In 1985, the modeling language ''A Mathematical Programming Language'',
AMPL AMPL (A Mathematical Programming Language) is an algebraic modeling language to describe and solve high-complexity problems for large-scale mathematical computing (i.e., large-scale optimization and scheduling-type problems). It was developed b ...
, was developed by Robert Fourer, David M. Gay and Brian Kernighan at Bell Laboratories. Also in 1985, Bell Laboratories was awarded the National Medal of Technology "For contribution over decades to modern communication systems". In 1985, the programming language
C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
had its first commercial release. Bjarne Stroustrup started developing C++ at Bell Laboratories in 1979 as an extension to the original C language. Arthur Ashkin invented optical tweezers that grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells with their laser beam fingers. A major breakthrough came in 1987, when Ashkin used the tweezers to capture living bacteria without harming them. He immediately began studying biological systems using the optical tweezers, which are now widely used to investigate the machinery of life. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (2018) for his work involving optical tweezers and their application to biological systems. In 1988, TAT-8 became the first transatlantic fiber-optic cable. Bell Labs in Freehold, NJ developed the 1.3-micron fiber, cable, splicing, laser detector, and 280 Mbit/s repeater for 40,000 telephone-call capacity. In the late 1980s, realizing that voiceband modems were approaching the Shannon limit on bit rate, Richard D. Gitlin, Jean-Jacques Werner, and their colleagues pioneered a major breakthrough by inventing DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and creating the technology that enabled megabit transmission on installed copper telephone lines, thus facilitating the broadband era.


1990s

In May 1990, Ronald Snare was named AT&T Bell Laboratories Fellow, for “Singular contributions to the development of the common-channel signaling network and the signal transfer points globally.” This system began service in the United States in 1978. Bell Labs Vice President Donald Leonard knew first-hand Mr. Snare’s accomplishments and knowledge over many years of Mr. Snare’s technical work and consultations. Vice President Leonard nominated and sponsored Mr. Snare for the Fellow Award recognition. Among this inductee, awards were presented to several others for accomplishments in other technical fields during the ceremony. In the early 1990s, approaches to increase modem speeds to 56K were explored at Bell Labs, and early patents were filed in 1992 by Ender Ayanoglu, Nuri R. Dagdeviren and their colleagues. In 1992 Jack Salz, Jack Winters and Richard D. Gitlin provided the foundational technology to demonstrate that adaptive antenna arrays at the transmitter and receiver can substantially increase both the reliability (via diversity) and capacity (via spatial multiplexing) of wireless systems without expanding the bandwidth. Subsequently, the BLAST system proposed by Gerard Foschini and colleagues dramatically expanded the capacity of wireless systems. This technology, known today as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output), was a significant factor in the standardization, commercialization, performance improvement, and spectacular growth of cellular and wireless LAN systems. In 1994, the quantum cascade laser was invented by Federico Capasso, Alfred Cho, Jerome Faist and their collaborators. 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 operating system Inferno (operating system), Inferno, an update of Plan 9, was created by Dennis Ritchie with others, using the then-new Concurrent computing, concurrent programming language Limbo (programming language), Limbo. A high performance database engine (Dali) was developed which became DataBlitz in its product form. In 1996, AT&T spun off Bell Laboratories, along with most of its equipment manufacturing business, into a new company named Alcatel-Lucent, Lucent Technologies. AT&T retained a small number of researchers who made up the staff of the newly created AT&T Labs. In 1997, the smallest then-practical transistor (60 nanometers, 182 atoms wide) was built. In 1998, the first Optical IP Switching, optical router was invented.


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 Dye laser, organic laser was invented; a large-scale map of cosmic dark matter was compiled; and the F-15 (material), an organic material that makes Organic electronics, plastic transistors possible, was invented. In 2002, physicist Schön scandal, Jan Hendrik Schön was fired after his work was found to contain fraudulent data. It was the first known case of fraud at Bell Labs. In 2003, the New Jersey Institute of Technology Biomedical Engineering Laboratory was created at Murray Hill, New Jersey. In 2004, Lucent Technologies awarded two women the prestigious Bell Labs Fellow Award. Magaly Spector, a director in INS/Network Systems Group, was awarded for "sustained and exceptional scientific and technological contributions in solid-state physics, III-V material for semiconductor lasers, Gallium Arsenide integrated circuits, and the quality and reliability of products used in high speed optical transport systems for next generation high bandwidth communication." Eve Varma, a technical manager in MNS/Network Systems Group, was awarded for her citation in "sustained contributions to digital and optical networking, including architecture, synchronization, restoration, standards, operations and control." In 2005, Jeong H. Kim, former President of Lucent's Optical Network Group, returned from academia to become the President of Bell Laboratories. In April 2006, Bell Laboratories' parent company, Lucent Technologies, signed a merger agreement with Alcatel-Lucent, 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, LGS Innovations, with an American board was set up to manage Bell Laboratories' and Lucent's sensitive U.S. government contracts. In March 2019, LGS Innovations was purchased by CACI. In December 2007, it was announced that the former Lucent Bell Laboratories and the former Alcatel Research and Innovation would be merged into one organization under the name of Bell Laboratories. This is the first period of growth following many years during which Bell Laboratories progressively lost manpower due to layoffs and spin-offs making the company shut down briefly. In February 2008, Alcatel-Lucent continued the Bell Laboratories tradition of awarding the prestigious award for outstanding technical contributors. Martin J. Glapa, a former chief Technical Officer of Lucent's Cable Communications Business Unit and Director of Advanced Technologies, was presented by Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs President Jeong H. Kim with the 2006 Bell Labs Fellow Award in Network Architecture, Network Planning, and Professional Services with particular focus in Cable TV Systems and Broadband Services having "significant resulting Alcatel-Lucent commercial successes." Glapa is a patent holder and has co-written the 2004 technical paper called "Optimal Availability & Security For Voice Over Cable Networks" and co-authored the 2008 "Impact of bandwidth demand growth on HFC networks" published by IEEE. As of July 2008, however, only four scientists remained in physics research, according to a report by the scientific journal ''Nature''. On August 28, 2008, Alcatel-Lucent announced it was pulling out of basic science, material physics, and semiconductor research, and it will instead focus on more immediately marketable areas, including networking, high-speed electronics, wireless networks, nanotechnology and software. In 2009, Willard Boyle and George Smith were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention and development of the
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD).


2010s

Gee Rittenhouse, former Head of Research, returned from his position as chief operating officer of Alcatel-Lucent's Software, Services, and Solutions business in February 2013, to become the 12th President of Bell Labs. On November 4, 2013, Alcatel-Lucent announced the appointment of Marcus Weldon as President of Bell Labs. His stated charter was to return Bell Labs to the forefront of innovation in Information and communications technology by focusing on solving the key industry challenges, as was the case in the great Bell Labs innovation eras in the past. In July 2014, Bell Labs announced it had broken "the broadband Internet speed record" with a new technology dubbed XG-FAST that promises 10 gigabits per second transmission speeds. In 2014, Eric Betzig shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in super-resolved fluorescence microscopy which he began pursuing while at Bell Labs in the Semiconductor Physics Research Department. On April 15, 2015,
Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
agreed to acquire Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs' parent company, in a share exchange worth $16.6 billion. Their first day of combined operations was January 14, 2016. In September 2016, Nokia Bell Labs, along with Technische Universität Berlin, Deutsche Telekom T-Labs and the Technical University of Munich achieved a data rate of one terabit per second by improving transmission capacity and spectral efficiency in an optical communications field trial with a Constellation shaping#Probabilistic Constellation Shaping, new modulation technique. In 2018, Arthur Ashkin shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on "the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems" which was developed at Bell Labs in the 1980s. In December 2019, Nokia announced the 2019 Bell Labs Fellows award recipients and citations: * Kendall William Harvey, groundbreaking innovation in and sustained contribution to advanced software for IP routing systems. * Kari Juhani Järvinen, developing outstanding audio technologies and successfully driving them into key standards (from GSM to UMTS to LTE and towards 5G), with significant impact on Nokia business. * Suresh Kalyanasundaram, outstanding contributions to cellular radio performance, from new physical layer algorithms to scheduler design. * Thomas Pfeiffer, advancing research and industrialization of optical access technologies and architectures. * Kurt Pynaert, passionate technology leadership, engineering and innovation contributing to Nokia's Fixed Access and End-to-End Solutions business. * Roland Ryf, groundbreaking optical designs and experimental results that have advanced Nokia's optical products and technical reputation. * Cinzia Sartori, highly impactful and sustained contributions to system architecture, network slicing and self-organizing networks in end-to-end mobile networks. * Lieven Trappeniers, sustained contributions in social communications, streaming media management, IoT systems and data analytics.


2020s

In 2020,
Alfred Aho Alfred Vaino Aho (born August 9, 1941) is a Canadian computer scientist best known for his work on programming languages, compilers, and related algorithms, and his textbooks on the art and science of computer programming. Aho was elected into ...
and Jeffrey Ullman shared the Turing Award for their work on compilers, starting with their tenure at Bell Labs during 1967–69. In December 2020, Nokia announced the 2020 Bell Labs Fellows award recipients and citations: * Fred Buchali, fundamental and sustained contributions to high-baud-rate systems and digital signal processing for optical transmission systems. * Devaki Chandramouli, seminal contributions to several generations of mobile network technologies and demonstrating excellence in leading technology development in industry standards bodies. * Giancarlo Gavioli, creation of industry-leading optical networks solutions and seminal contributions in communication theory and algorithmic development and dense integrated digital circuit implementation. * Jani Lainema, developing outstanding video technologies and driving those into the dominant global standards. * Klaus Ingemann Pedersen, outstanding contributions to radio resource management research and holistic end-to-end system-level performance modeling and analysis.  * Jorge Rabadan, consistent and sustained contribution to the development and standardization of Virtual Private Network technologies. * Shahriar Shahramian, seminal contributions to the field of mmWave integrated circuits and architectures with significant impact on wireless communication systems. On, November 16, 2021, Nokia presented the 2021 Bell Labs Fellows Award Ceremony, six new members (Igor Curcio, Matthew Andrews, Bjorn Jelonnek, Ed Harstead, Gino Dion, Esa Tiirola) held at Nokia Batvik Mansion, Finland.


Nobel Prizes, Turing Awards

Nine Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories. * 1937: Clinton Davisson, Clinton J. Davisson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating the wave nature of matter. * 1956:
John Bardeen John Bardeen (; May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and engineer. He is the only person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the tran ...
, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley received the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the first
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
s. * 1977:
Philip W. Anderson Philip Warren Anderson (December 13, 1923 – March 29, 2020) was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate. Anderson made contributions to the theories of localization, antiferromagnetism, symmetry breaking (including a paper in 1 ...
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 Woodrow Wilson, Robert W. Wilson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. Penzias and Wilson were cited for their discovering cosmic microwave background radiation, a nearly uniform glow that fills the Universe in the microwave band of the radio spectrum. * 1997: Steven Chu shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. * 1998: Horst Störmer, Robert Laughlin, and Daniel Tsui, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering and explaining the
fractional quantum Hall effect The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2-dimensional (2D) electrons shows precisely quantized plateaus at fractional values of e^2/h. It is a property of a collective state in which elec ...
. * 2009: Willard S. Boyle,
George E. Smith George Elwood Smith (born May 10, 1930) is an American scientist, applied physicist, and co-inventor of the charge-coupled device (CCD). He was awarded a one-quarter share in the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for "the invention of an imaging semico ...
shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Charles K. Kao. Boyle and Smith were cited for inventing
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD) semiconductor imaging sensors. * 2014: Eric Betzig shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in super-resolved fluorescence microscopy which he began pursuing while at Bell Labs. * 2018: Arthur Ashkin shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on "the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems" which was developed at Bell Labs. The Turing Award has been won five times by Bell Labs researchers. * 1968:
Richard Hamming Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer engineering and telecommunications. His contributions include the Hamming code (which makes use of a Ha ...
for his work on numerical methods, automatic coding systems, and error-detecting and error-correcting codes. * 1983:
Ken Thompson Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programmi ...
and
Dennis Ritchie Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is most well-known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B p ...
for their work on operating system theory, and for developing
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
. * 1986: Robert Tarjan with John Hopcroft, for fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures. * 2018: Yann LeCun and Yoshua Bengio shared the Turing Award with Geoffrey Hinton for their work in Deep Learning. * 2020:
Alfred Aho Alfred Vaino Aho (born August 9, 1941) is a Canadian computer scientist best known for his work on programming languages, compilers, and related algorithms, and his textbooks on the art and science of computer programming. Aho was elected into ...
and Jeffrey Ullman shared the Turing Award for their work on Compilers.


Emmy Awards, Grammy Award, and Academy Award

The Emmy Award has been won five times by Bell Labs: one under Lucent Technologies, one under Alcatel-Lucent, and three under Nokia. * 1997: Primetime Engineering Emmy Award for "work on digital television as part of the HDTV Grand Alliance." * 2013: Technology and Engineering Emmy for its "Pioneering Work in Implementation and Deployment of Network DVR" * 2016: Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for the pioneering invention and deployment of fiber-optic cable. * 2020: Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for the CCD (
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
) was crucial in the development of television, allowing images to be captured digitally for recording transmission. * 2021: Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for the "ISO Base Media File Format standardization, in which our multimedia research unit has played a major role." The inventions of fiber-optics and research done in digital television and media File Format were under former AT&T Bell Labs ownership. The Grammy Award has been won once by Bell Labs under Alcatel-Lucent. * 2006: Technical GRAMMY® Award for outstanding technical contributions to the recording field. The Academy Award has been won once by E. C. Wente and Bell Labs. * 1937: Scientific or Technical Award (Class II) for their multi-cellular high-frequency horn and receiver.


Publications

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Western Electric, and other Bell System companies issued numerous publications, such as local house organs, for corporate distribution, for the scientific and industry communities, and for the general public, including telephone subscribers. The Bell Laboratories Record was a principal house organ, featuring general interest content such as corporate news, support staff profiles and events, reports of facilities upgrades, but also articles of research and development results written for technical or non-technical audiences. The publication commenced in 1925 with the founding of the laboratories. A prominent journal for the focussed dissemination of original or reprinted scientific research by Bell Labs engineers and scientists was the ''
Bell System Technical Journal The ''Bell Labs Technical Journal'' is the in-house scientific journal for scientists of Nokia Bell Labs, published yearly by the IEEE society. The managing editor is Charles Bahr. The journal was originally established as the ''Bell System Techn ...
'', started in 1922 by the AT&T Information Department. Bell researchers also published widely in industry journals. Some of these articles were reprinted by the Bell System as Monographs, consecutively issued starting in 1920. These reprints, numbering over 5000, comprise a catalog of Bell research over the decades. Research in the Monographs is aided by access to associated indexes, for monographs 1–1199, 1200-2850 (1958), 2851-4050 (1962), and 4051-4650 (1964). Essentially all of the landmark work done by Bell Labs is memorialized in one or more corresponding monographs. Examples include: * Monograph 1598 - Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, 1948 (reprinted from BSTJ). * Monograph 1659 - Bardeen and Brattain, Physical Principles Involved in Transistor Action, 1949 (reprinted from BSTJ). * Monograph 1757 - Hamming, Error Detecting and Error Correcting Codes, 1950 (reprinted from BSTJ). * Monograph 3289 - Pierce, Transoceanic Communications by Means of Satellite, 1959 (reprinted from Proc. I.R.E.). * Monograph 3345 - Schawlow & Townes, Infrared and Optical Masers, 1958 (reprinted from Physical Review).


Presidents


Notable alumni

* __ Nobel Prize * __ Turing Award


Educational films

AT&T had several short films that focused on the science and technology associated with telephony or inventions from Bell Labs or Bell System. Here is a list of short films with a description and significance. * "West of Chicago Indian Hill" (circa 1966) Film about towns pictured in Naperville area with schools, churches, medical & hospital facilities, recreation events and shopping areas. This was an effort to show life for employees and family of the future home of Bell Telephone Laboratories. There are glimpses of Western Electric supervising the construction of the Indian Hill building and a model. Planned to open in Fall 1966 for 1500 people and was produced by the Film Department at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Ending credits show Writer-Director was John P. Rimo, Cinematography by Tom Musca and Jim Canon of Double Sixteen Co. and Editor was Dick Gerendasy of Wilding Inc. * "Careers at Bell Laboratories" (1979) Recruiting video of careers at various locations and areas of telephony. Featured: Althea Ginn-TIRKS-(Piscataway), Gregory Chesson-Computer System Research Department-Developing Computer Networks-(Murray Hill), Chin-Sheng Chuang-Digital Signal Processing-(Holmdel), Kathy & Peter Hoppner-Develop Maintenance Programs for the 4ESS-Indian Hill Lab-(Naperville, IL), Philip Fair-Designer in the Residential Telephone Department-(Indianapolis, IND), Ray & Maria Bonachea-Supervise Program Administration and System Test for Switching Control Center System- (Columbus, Ohio), Michael Liberty-Digital Technology for Business Customers-(Denver, Colorado), Bill Blinn-Director of Technical Employment at Bell Labs-(Murray Hill) * "Microworld" (1980) BONUS EDITION, hosted by William Shatner, An Owen Murphy Production Directed by Paul Cohen, Introduction by George Kupczak of the AT&T Archives and History Center, Microchip manufacturing process. * "Discovery" (1982) Holmdel Bell Labs 20th Anniversary documentary produced by the Holmdel Art Studio with historical aspects in a narrated slide show presentation. "This video, in addition to giving a clear, brief history of Bell Labs and the Holmdel complex, also provides good insight into the life of the Bell employee, not just in the work place but at social gatherings and in community outreach." * "Ready for Tomorrow for Today" (1988?) The AT&T Product Training Services Center, located in Dublin, Ohio, features the 5ESS network switch equipment. The presenter indicates the equipment first installation at Seneca, Illinois that pioneered switching services. The switch can be used for local, toll, and tandem offices. The equipment can handle 100,000 lines and 300,000 peak busy hour calls. The modules that make up the 5ESS switch are administrative (AM,) switching (SM,) communication (CM,) remote switching (RSM,) and optically remote (ORM.)--->(The equipment was designed by Bell Labs)" * "Orchestra" (1991) "A classical music segment featured in "Live from Bell Labs, "a children's science series airing on PBS stations nationwide. In Orchestra, leading scientists and physicists from AT&T Bell Laboratories, playing along with professional musicians, perform a movement from a symphony. Short interviews of the scientist-musicians describing their work and its relationship to music are featured throughout the performance." We have Jay Wilpon featured. Look for him and see his instrument and see what was his job! Thanks to our leading musician, John Koch featured as percussion and component engineer. It took me a while to go through the names in a pause and play of the video and back and forth between the group and the video. I searched and see featured at 04:34 the famous, Norm R Tiedemann, another talented individual. * "Live from AT&T Bell Laboratories" (Spring 1991, Episode 1) David Heil and Arno Penzias present scientific and technological ideas or products segments by renowned research scientists to teachers and students in a live PBS showing via satellite. Optical Computing Research Department, Molecular Beam Epitaxy, Speech Activated Manipulator (SAM) robotic arm, Gor-Don Robot from InfoQuest, Whippany Jesse Russell Cellular Test Van, office messaging, Jay Wilpon speech recognition for flight reservation system, Alan Wong lasers for optical computers, and AT&T Learning Network with electronic mail. * "Live from AT&T Bell Laboratories" (1992, Episode 2) David Heil and Arno Penzias present scientific and technological ideas or products segments by renowned research scientists to teachers and students in a live PBS showing. Student audience linked by two way satellite in Texas and Wisconsin, and seen around the globe by via Air Forces Television. Greg Blonder-fiber optics, Y. K. Chen and Wing Mu-fastest lasers, undersea cables, Mohammed Islam-logical gate, Kelley Siegal-industrial engineer printed circuit boards, Wayne Knox-infrared laser, Holmdel Janice Marshall-chemical engineer, Ron Graham-Mathematician, Bill Bennett-Telstar 4, Astronaut Terry Hart-engineer on Telstar 4, Senator David Inouye, Jim West-Anechoic Chamber, Bob Lucky-Communication Sciences Division, Dr. Walter Massey-Director National Science Foundation. * "Live from AT&T Bell Laboratories" (Spring 1993, Episode 3) Broadcast April 28, 1993, David Heil and Arno Penzias present scientific and technological ideas or products segments by renowned research scientist to teachers and students in a live PBS showing. Students in San Francisco Exploratorium and The Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, La Villette, Paris. Text-to-speech, EO communicator, microchips, clean-room, Kelley Purkey Siegal with Science High School students winning a US First Chairman's Award, Joel de Rosnay-Cité des sciences et de l'industrie, Jugglers Tim Furst and Rhys Thomas with Ron Graham-Mathematician, Guy Story-Scientist/Musician Computing Research and lead singer in music video, Ryshard Horowitz-photographer and Ilona Jones-Bell Labs Art Director-poster project digital photo montage (Penn/Teller and digital Karamazov Brothers.) Segments, "The Worm Turns," "Penn and Teller," "Fellowship," "Magic" Bell Labs music video, "Penn and Teller" performing magic with scientists. * "Live from AT&T Bell Laboratories" (Fall 1993, Episode 4) Broadcast September 29, 1993, David Heil and Arno Penzias present scientific and technological ideas or products segments by renowned research scientist to teachers and students in a live PBS showing. President Bill Clinton, former MTV VJ Martha Quinn, and Penn and Teller are featured. Segments have Bell Labs Research Director, Greg Blonder, Researcher Marcia Grabow, engineer Amy Puls, and Math professor Arlie Petters. (58 minutes VHS)


Programs

On May 20, 2014, Bell Labs announced the ''Bell Labs Prize'', a competition for innovators to offer proposals in information and communication technologies, with cash awards of up to $100,000 for the grand prize.


Bell Labs Technology Showcase

The Murray Hill campus features a exhibit, the Bell Labs Technology Showcase, showcasing the technological discoveries and developments at Bell Labs. The exhibit is located just off the main lobby and is open to the public.


See also

* Bell Labs Holmdel Complex * ''Bell Labs Technical Journal''—Published scientific journal of Bell Laboratories (1996–present) * ''Bell Labs Record'' * Industrial laboratory * George Stibitz—Bell Laboratories engineer—"father of the modern digital computer" * 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 * Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory * Simplified Message Desk Interface * Sound film—''Westrex'' sound system for cinema films developed by Bell Labs * ''TWX Magazine''—A short-lived trade periodical published by Bell Laboratories (1944–1952) * Experiments in Art and Technology—A collaboration between artists and Bell Labs engineers & scientists to create new forms of art


References


Further reading

* Martin, Douglas
Ian M. Ross, a President at Bell Labs, Dies at 85
''The New York Times'', March 16, 2013, p. A23 * * Gleick, James. ''The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood''. Vintage Books, 2012, 544 pages. .


External links

* *
Bell Works
the re-imagining of the historic former Bell Labs building in Holmdel, New Jersey
Timeline of discoveries as of 2006Nokia Bell-Labs Timeline

Bell Labs' Murray Hill anechoic chamber




* ''[https://www.publicartinpublicplaces.info/bell-communications-1961-by-anthony-b-heinsbergen Bell Communications Around the Globe]'', public art sculpture, Los Angeles, California
The Idea Factory
a video interview with Jon Gertner, author of "The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, by Dave Iverson of KQED-FM Public Radio, San Francisco {{Coord, 40.683404, -74.400744, type:landmark, display=title Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent Bell System Berkeley Heights, New Jersey Companies based in Union County, New Jersey Computer science institutes in the United States Computer science research organizations Former AT&T subsidiaries History of telecommunications in the United States National Medal of Technology recipients New Providence, New Jersey Nokia Research institutes in New Jersey v