Lillian Hoddeson and Peter Garrett
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780262037532
- eISBN:
- 9780262345033
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262037532.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This introduction offers a brief account of Ovshinsky’s career. It outlines his development from machinist and toolmaker to independent inventor and notes how his work on automation, including his ...
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This introduction offers a brief account of Ovshinsky’s career. It outlines his development from machinist and toolmaker to independent inventor and notes how his work on automation, including his study of cybernetics and neurophysiology, led to his most important discovery of the “Ovshinsky effect,” using amorphous thin films. This switching effect was used to create semiconductor devices like his threshold switch and phase-change memory. After sketching Ovshinsky’s later career as the director of his own research and development laboratory, ECD, the introduction considers the source of Ovshinsky’s scientific and technological creativity in the thought processes of his self-educated, intuitive mind, which relied heavily on the use of analogies and visualization. It concludes by briefly considering how Ovshinsky’s work is related to his social-historical context, in particular, how his inventive career spans the transition from the industrial to the information age, making distinctive contributions to both.Less
This introduction offers a brief account of Ovshinsky’s career. It outlines his development from machinist and toolmaker to independent inventor and notes how his work on automation, including his study of cybernetics and neurophysiology, led to his most important discovery of the “Ovshinsky effect,” using amorphous thin films. This switching effect was used to create semiconductor devices like his threshold switch and phase-change memory. After sketching Ovshinsky’s later career as the director of his own research and development laboratory, ECD, the introduction considers the source of Ovshinsky’s scientific and technological creativity in the thought processes of his self-educated, intuitive mind, which relied heavily on the use of analogies and visualization. It concludes by briefly considering how Ovshinsky’s work is related to his social-historical context, in particular, how his inventive career spans the transition from the industrial to the information age, making distinctive contributions to both.
Susan Whyman
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781786940643
- eISBN:
- 9781786945143
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940643.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Military History
This chapter considers Baskerville’s social networks and compares him with another self-educated ‘rough diamond’, the local historian and businessman, William Hutton. It explores how Baskerville ...
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This chapter considers Baskerville’s social networks and compares him with another self-educated ‘rough diamond’, the local historian and businessman, William Hutton. It explores how Baskerville benefited from connections with those individuals who provided him with status, identity and support in helping him to realise his ambitions. He also mixed with individuals who had received more formal education, including the Oxford-educated William Shenstone, the poet and landscape designer, and Robert Dodsley, the publisher. They helped to shape his choice of books to print and his wider publishing activities. The chapter concludes that Baskerville, like Hutton, had confidence to experiment with new ideas, outside of formal institutions.Less
This chapter considers Baskerville’s social networks and compares him with another self-educated ‘rough diamond’, the local historian and businessman, William Hutton. It explores how Baskerville benefited from connections with those individuals who provided him with status, identity and support in helping him to realise his ambitions. He also mixed with individuals who had received more formal education, including the Oxford-educated William Shenstone, the poet and landscape designer, and Robert Dodsley, the publisher. They helped to shape his choice of books to print and his wider publishing activities. The chapter concludes that Baskerville, like Hutton, had confidence to experiment with new ideas, outside of formal institutions.
