The Idea Factory, Gertner - B--

                                         Perhaps the fault lies somewhere between my indifference to science and the author's presentation. But somehow, this story of Bell Labs, the most formidable commingling of science and business in the 20th century, is flat-out boring. That is not easy to do considering that the men of Bell Labs invented the vacuum tube, the transistor (from early germanium to silicon wafers), Unix computer language, Telstar (the first US communications satellite), binary digitization of information, as well as wireless and cellular telephony.  They were co-pioneers in the development of radar, sonar and lasers; huge contributors to national defense and along the way designed and built a national, smoothly functioning phone system that itself was filled with technological marvels. However, like all good things, Bell Labs pretty much fell apart when it lost its mission, upon the break-up of the phone company.