Walter Houser Brattain

American physicist (1902–1987)

  • Fame58.5
  • Momentum0.0
  • Wikipedia3K
Source-basedStable
Lived 1902–1987, aged 85United States
  • Wikipedia
    75 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1902–1987
    Aged 85
  • Awards
    5
    recognised works
Summary
Updated 2026-06-09

He helped build the single invention that made the modern world possible: the transistor. The 1956 Nobel Prize marked the moment physics became engineering, and Walter Brattain stood at the hinge.

Biography

About

Born February 10, 1902, Brattain was an American physicist who spent most of his career studying surface states — the behavior of materials at their boundaries. That focus led him into collaboration with John Bardeen and William Shockley, and in their lab the three invented the point-contact transistor. The Nobel committee awarded them the 1956 Prize in Physics, recognizing the device that would underpin every computer, phone, and circuit to follow. Brattain died October 13, 1987, decades into the age his work had quietly built.

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The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
58.5
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Historical24.1
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
Global rank
Country rank
Category rank
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Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence