Transistors and Grains of Rice

A columnist for Fortune magazine recently wrote an article on the development of the transistor in our society. I wrote a book on the history of the transistor, so this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. He mentions that 100,000 transistors can be bought for less than the price of a grain of rice! When I was a kid, and when he was a kid, it used to be that a home might have 10 or so transistors in a transistor radio or a transistorized tv. Now it is just about impossible to count how many transistors we own--it is in the many billions. This cheap transistor has made possible many new applications of electronics that would have seemed impossible a few decades ago. Cheap transistors make it possible to have digital paper towel dispensers. One of the great challenges of our day is to try to figure out new uses for cheap transitors.