Walter Houser Brattain
American physicist (1902–1987)
- Fame58.5
- Momentum0.0
- Scientists rank#242
Source-basedStable
- Fame58.5
- Momentum0.0
- Scientists rank#242
- Wikipedia3K
Lived 1902–1987, aged 85United States
United StatesSummary
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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Fame
Stable58.5
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Historical24.1
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
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- WikidataHigh confidencewikidata · wikidata.org
- WikipediaHigh confidencewikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
- Pantheon 2.0High confidencedatabase · pantheon.world
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