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Walter Houser Brattain

American physicist (1902-1987) · United States · Scientists · Died at 85

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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.

A life in dates

1987Died13 October 19871974National Inventors Hall of FameAward1956Nobel Prize in PhysicsAwardRichtmyer Memorial Lecture AwardAward1954John Scott AwardAward1952Stuart Ballantine MedalAward1902Born10 February 1902

Also in Deutsch

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Awards

National Inventors Hall of Fame1974
Nobel Prize in Physics1956
Richtmyer Memorial Lecture Award1956
John Scott Award1954
Stuart Ballantine Medal1952

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About this person

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.

Country
United States
Category
Scientists
Type
Scientist
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1902 to 1987 · aged 85

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