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when you think about the technology of
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today and the innovation in the 20th
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century that got us here you might think
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of NASA maybe the Manhattan Project or
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about Silicon Valley developing
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microchips but which of these legendary
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organizations did the most Innovation
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the answer is Bell
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Labs the responsibility of bell
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Laboratories is to provide the science
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and technology to turn AT&T's Vision
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into
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[Music]
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reality they likely produced more
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discoveries and inventions than any
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other organization in the 20th century
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and enabled AT&T to become a company so
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large that the US government had to
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break them up in 1984 this is the story
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of that Innovation and it's the story of
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bell
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[Music]
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labs in the past few months of filming
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S3 I felt like something was missing the
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reason I make this show is to study the
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Art and Science of innovation and not
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only that but to try and convince you
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that if you want you can have a part in
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it but it feels wrong to only focus on
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the companies of today and totally
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ignore big and in many cases underrated
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stories of innovation in the
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past this is our first ever historic S3
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meaning that the story will tell isn't
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about a company that's trying to build
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the future today but is instead about a
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team of people who innovated in the past
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to bring us to where we are in the
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present so why why Bell Labs at the peak
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of its reputation in the late 1960s Bell
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Labs employed about 15,000 people
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including some 1,200 phds its ranks
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included the world's most brilliant and
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Ecentric men and women in a time before
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Google the lab sufficed as the country's
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intellectual Utopia as it happens the
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past offers the example of one seemingly
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Wicked problem that was overcome by an
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Innovative effort that Rivals the Apollo
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program and the Manhattan Project in
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size scope expense and duration before
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reading this book I didn't really know
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much about Bell ABS I had heard about
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the Manhattan Project I'd seen the
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Christopher Nolan movie and I've seen
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all the movies and media about the
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Apollo program but the idea Factory by
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John gerner kind of uncovered this like
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World of innovation that I had never
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heard of despite being someone who tells
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a lot of stories about people who do
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Innovation it's easily one of my
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favorite things I've read in 2024 so if
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you finish this video and you like what
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you hear here you should definitely Buy
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and read this book okay now let's get on
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to the story of bell labs
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the story of bell lab starts almost 100
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years ago in a 400,000 ft building in
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New Jersey but to set the stage for that
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40 years prior AT&T was founded by
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Alexander grah Bell the inventor of the
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telephone by this point AT&T had taken
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off and was basically the leader in most
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phone calls going on in the United
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States but competition was beginning to
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build up other people were building
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phone networks and trying to come the
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throne and the kingdom that Alexander
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had built but in 1907 Theodore Vil took
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over leadership at AT&T and he had a
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vision about the future of what their
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business could look like that he and his
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Infamous PR arm coined as one policy one
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system Universal service Universal
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service was this sweeping Vision
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something ridiculous that nobody had
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dared to dream before a total and
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complete telecommunication system that
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could connect everyone everywhere under
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one system and one policy today that
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sounds sort of obvious but back then it
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was crazy the veil strategy in short
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would measure the company's progress in
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decades instead of years to pull off
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this crazy dream and ambition they' need
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to build it and not only that they need
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to discover the material science
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engineering and physics to do that
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they'd need to invent it existing
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technology simply couldn't support the
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kind of long-distance reliable
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communication they envisioned at that
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time you could basically make a call to
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halfway across the country there was no
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way to make a phone call from New York
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to California but in 1915 during the
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international Exposition in San
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Francisco AT&T showcased a
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groundbreaking achievement the first
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transcontinental telephone call
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Alexander granbell hopped back on the
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phone in New York and spoke to his
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former assistant Thomas Watson in San
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Francisco this feat required an immense
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amount of Labor this Continental link
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was strung from the East to the West
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Coast with over 130,000 wood poles this
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wasn't just a demonstration of
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technological prowess it was a symbolic
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moment that proved their Vision was
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attainable it was an idea that
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technology could unlock new business
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potential and that led to the creation
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of bell Labs Veil brought in Frank jitt
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a brilliant engineer who became the
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first president of B abs and while J
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laid the groundwork it was really mvin
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Kelly who ran the show in later years he
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fostered an environment where creativity
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and collaboration thrived so the
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founding team got set up in 1925 with a
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starter budget of $12 million a year or
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$220 million in today's Cash this is an
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insane amount of money and something
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that could have only been possible from
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the Monopoly that was AT&T Bell Labs was
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structured to prioritize long-term
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thinking this was a big thing that
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Theodore Veil pushed but this wasn't for
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Al is Theodore Veil believed that
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technology over the long run could
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provide immense business value to AT&T
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researchers were given remarkable
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freedom to pursue almost any line of
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inquiry as long as they could justify
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that it might one day contribute to
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building the system this wasn't a place
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bogged down by immediate profit margins
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or quarterly reports it was a crucible
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for Innovation where the only limit was
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imagination and research and right down
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the street was Western Electric AT&T's
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manufacturing Powerhouse Bell Labs would
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come up with an idea and Western would
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build it this seamless integration
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between theoretical research and
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practical application was a GameChanger
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now let's meet The Young
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[Music]
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Turks the Brilliant Minds who became the
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Beating Heart of bell Labs first up we
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have William shley a theoretical
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physicist with an uncanny ability to see
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where technology was headed later in
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life Shockley had some not so scientific
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views yeah that's pretty bad will stick
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to just talking about his physics work
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then there's John Bine the quiet genius
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despite his reserved demor his
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contributions were Monumental and fun
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fact he's the only person to have won
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the Nobel Prize in physics twice for
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entirely different breakthroughs then
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there's Walter Bain the experimental
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extraordinaire he had a knack for
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translating complex theories into
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tangible experiments colleagues joke
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that he could build anything with a
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piece of wire and some chewing gum and
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we can't forget Claude Shannon the
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mathematician and electrical engineer
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who laid the foundations of information
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theory in a single video we can't
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mention everyone who is a critical part
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of B Labs magic and again go read the
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book there talked about a ton in here
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the vibe at Bell Labs was electric they
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published their own journal shared
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insights and had sparking discussions
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where they talked about deep topics that
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weren't even a thing like solid state
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physics let's talk about one of their
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first big Innovations the vacuum
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tube in 1912 a crucial advancement in
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vacuum tube technology happened almost
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by accident around 1912 Harold Arnold
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was trying to improve the audio an
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analog amplifier brought to Bell labs in
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1912 through Tri and error Arnold
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discovered that in high vacuum and with
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r materials you could greatly improve
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the audion efficiency they were called
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vacuum tubes this serendipitous
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Discovery allowed for better
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amplification of signals Paving the way
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for long-distance telephone calls and
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radio broadcasts Telly called The Tubes
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Miracle devices that would usher in a
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great age of electronic communications
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but he knew better than anyone how
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difficult they were to make a few
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decades later after AT&T had begun to
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prolifer vacuum tubes all across the US
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William shley was having some
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interesting ideas relating to
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semiconductors Shockley had concluded by
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then that a certain class of materials
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known as semiconductors so named because
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they are neither good conductors of
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electricity nor good insulators of
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electricity but somewhere in between
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might be an ideal solid replacement for
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tubes the possibilities of using
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semiconductors was enormous but then the
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war
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[Music]
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came World War II shifted the global
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landscape and Bell Labs was no exception
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but that didn't stop them from
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innovating Bell Labs LED over a thousand
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projects for the US military during
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World War II they applied their
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expertise to develop radar encryption
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devices and other Technologies critical
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to National Security when we think about
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the technological Feats that contributed
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to the Allied victory in World War II
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the atomic bomb often takes Center Stage
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but in reality it was radar that truly
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turned the tide of the war it's often
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said that the atomic bomb ended the war
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but that radar won it to put this into
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perspective the United States spent
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about $3 billion on radar development
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during the war compared to a measly 2
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billion on the Manhattan Project so how
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does radar work and why was it such a
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big deal radar which stands for radio
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detection and ranging is a system that
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uses electromagnetic waves to identify
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the distance speed and direction of
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objects it sends out radio waves that
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bounce off of objects and return to the
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source allowing the system to calculate
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an object's position and movement it
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meant that for the first time in Warfare
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armies Could See Beyond the Horizon
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detect incoming threats in any weather
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and coordinate their defenses with
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unprecedented accuracy Bell Labs was
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instrumental in the radar Revolution
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during what was often called the
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physicists War the war effort led to
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explosive growth at Babs at the
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beginning of the war they were 4,600 by
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the end they had 9,000 employees as the
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war Drew to a close Bell ABS didn't slow
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down in fact mvin Kelly had a post-war
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reorganization plan ready to go the
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moment peace was declared post-war Bell
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Labs went on what can only be described
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as a spending spree Kelly Buckley and JW
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were of the mind that Bell Labs would
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soon become the largest and most
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advanced research organization in the
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world for the past 5 years in between
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all of his wartime work Kelly had
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devoted large blocks of time to
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orchestrating the construction of an
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immense complex of buildings in the
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wooded Hills of New Jersey with a price
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tag of $4 million the new building was
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not conceived as an ordinary laboratory
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all the buildings have been connected so
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as to avoid fixed geographical
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delineation between departments and to
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encourage free interchange and close
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cont among them the physicists and
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chemists and mathematicians were not
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meant to avoid one another and the
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research people were not meant to evade
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the development people by intention
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everyone would be in one another's way
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members of the technical staff would
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often have both Laboratories and small
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offices but they might be in different
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corridors making it necessary to walk
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between the two and all but assuring a
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chance encounter with a colleague along
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the way this period marked the beginning
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of an unprecedented era of innovation at
00:10:27
Bells in 19 1947 Bell lab scientists
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John Bine Walter Bain and William
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Shockley developed the first working
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transistor a small device made from
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semiconductor materials like Silicon and
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geranium this tiny component could
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amplify and switch electronic signals
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effectively replacing the bulky and
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unreliable vacuum tubes of the time the
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transistor was more than just a
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technical achievement it was a
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Cornerstone of the electronic age it led
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directly to the development of virtually
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all modern Electronics from computers
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and smartphones to medical equipment and
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satellites but there's more to the story
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John didn't stop with the transistor he
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went on to co-develop BCS Theory or
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super conductivity which explained how
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certain materials can conduct
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electricity without resistance at
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extremely low temperatures one of the
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biggest Innovations came in 1954 when
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bellab scientists darl shapen Calvin
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Fuller and Gerald Pearson developed the
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first practical silicon solar cell this
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device could convert sunlight directly
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into electricity with an efficiency of
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6% which was a significant leap at the
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time this invention marked the birth of
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photovoltaics Paving the way for solar
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panels that power homes satellites and
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spacecraft today Bell Labs was also at
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the Forefront of Laser Technology in
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1958 Arthur Shalo and Charles towns
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published a seminal paper outlining the
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principles of the laser which stands for
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light amplification by stimulated
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emission of radiation during this time
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Bell laabs wasn't only looking at the
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ground they set their sights on the
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stars in 1960 they launched echo1 a
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passive communication satellite meaning
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that you would just shoot RF signals up
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at it and they would bounce it back to
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you it was a bold experiment that proved
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satellite communication was feasible
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building on the success in 1962 Bells
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introduced tellar one the world's first
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active communication satellite unlike
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echko telar could amplify signals before
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retransmitting them back to Earth this
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allowed for the first live transatlantic
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television
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broadcast sometimes the most profound
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discoveries happen by accident in 1964
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bab's astronomers were working on a
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project involving satellites using a
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giant horn antenna they kept
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encountering a persistent background
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noise that they couldn't eliminate no
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matter what they tried even after
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evicting some pigeons nesting in the
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antenna they had stumbled upon the
00:12:34
cosmic microwave background radiation of
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the universe this is the Afterglow of
00:12:38
The Big Bang Theory and is sort of the
00:12:40
Bedrock of a lot of cosmology research
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done today the Innovation didn't stop
00:12:44
there in 1969 William Bole and George E
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Smith invented the charge coupled device
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or the CCD this technology allowed for
00:12:51
the electronic capturing of light images
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effectively replacing traditional
00:12:55
photographic film ccds became the heart
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of digital cameras Medical Imaging
00:12:59
devices in telescopes by the late 1960s
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Bell Labs had reached its Zenith the
00:13:04
institution boasted over 15,000
00:13:06
employees including 12200 phds it was a
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Melting Pot of intellect and creativity
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unparalleled in scope and impact imagine
00:13:13
walking through the halls of bells
00:13:14
during this era to get from one side to
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the other it was intentionally designed
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again so you cross paths with other
00:13:19
people you might pass a physicist
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pondering the mysteries of the universe
00:13:23
or an engineer designing cuttingedge
00:13:24
communication systems or a mathematician
00:13:27
laying the groundwork for computer
00:13:28
Theory and riding a unicycle all Under
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One Roof The Innovation from Bell Labs
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didn't just stay within the confines of
00:13:35
the company they rippled outward
00:13:37
influencing Industries and sparking new
00:13:39
fields of study entirely the transistor
00:13:41
led to the development of microchips in
00:13:43
the entire semiconductor industry as we
00:13:45
know it
00:13:46
today possibly one of the most
00:13:48
significant contributions and one of the
00:13:50
most remarkable individuals to emerge
00:13:51
from Bell Labs was Claud Shannon known
00:13:53
today as the father of information
00:13:55
Theory Shannon's work laid the
00:13:57
foundational principles that underpin
00:13:59
our digital age but don't take it from
00:14:01
me here's a clip from a secret project
00:14:03
I'm working on from the co-founder of
00:14:04
neuralink who's now working on his own
00:14:06
company science on the impact of Claud
00:14:08
Shannon and information Theory so
00:14:10
information Theory really got it start
00:14:11
in the 1940s uh Cloud Shannon was
00:14:13
working at Bell Labs he was working for
00:14:16
a telecom and they wanted to know they
00:14:18
were going from analog phone lines so
00:14:19
how do we scale this and so the problem
00:14:21
that he was looking at is if you receive
00:14:23
a signal in one place how do you
00:14:25
transmit that over a wire to recover the
00:14:28
signal somewhere else and how do you do
00:14:30
this in a way that is not just as your
00:14:32
wire gets longer it gets noisier and it
00:14:35
gets harder to hear the the idea of
00:14:36
digital coding is this is not about
00:14:39
Electronics or CPUs it's about taking
00:14:42
these analog continuous noisy Real World
00:14:46
Systems and building encoding schemes
00:14:49
that allow you to perfectly encode
00:14:50
information that is always recoverable
00:14:52
and so Cloud Channon was thinking about
00:14:54
this at B Labs he ended up writing a
00:14:56
paper called a mathematical theory of
00:14:57
communication he was looking at like if
00:14:59
you look at the statistics of English
00:15:01
you've got letters and you can randomly
00:15:03
sample one of the 26 letters of the
00:15:05
alphabet this looks like gibberish but
00:15:07
if you look at sampling letters based on
00:15:09
one prior letter so e is more often
00:15:12
after a or after b or whatever then you
00:15:14
get something with a little more
00:15:15
structure or if you look at sampling
00:15:17
based on two letters and these are
00:15:18
called NRS for one or two or three grams
00:15:21
you can calculate the statistics of how
00:15:23
often do these letters follow each other
00:15:26
and maybe now you split by words you
00:15:28
know instead of samping out letters
00:15:29
you're sampling out words from the
00:15:30
dictionary and you're looking at what
00:15:32
words tend to appear after other words
00:15:34
and so as you go out to longer structure
00:15:36
you get this emergent structure which
00:15:37
encodes something about like the
00:15:39
statistics of the language so what is
00:15:41
like how do you represent all of this
00:15:43
like what what are we dealing with here
00:15:44
the thing that thing that's fundamental
00:15:46
underneath and he came to this idea of
00:15:48
of the bit and like what is a bit the
00:15:50
the definition he offered was a
00:15:52
difference that makes a difference this
00:15:54
is an idea which is so General as to be
00:15:56
kind of tough to reason about when
00:15:57
you're new to it and I think that's one
00:15:59
of the reasons that it's had such D
00:16:00
power because it is such a such a
00:16:01
profoundly general idea that it kind of
00:16:04
has lives in all these different areas
00:16:06
and this all came down from how do we
00:16:08
build fault tolerant encoding schemes
00:16:10
that allow us to span across the country
00:16:13
with telephone
00:16:15
[Music]
00:16:20
wires information theory was discovered
00:16:22
and predicted to be Monumental long
00:16:24
before its full potential was realized
00:16:26
this simple idea that any sort of
00:16:28
information
00:16:29
small big or massively complex could be
00:16:32
encoded as a single binary value of a z
00:16:35
or one was groundbreaking he showed how
00:16:37
information can be Quantified
00:16:39
transmitted efficiently and encoded to
00:16:41
reduce errors even over noisy
00:16:43
communication channels something
00:16:45
previously thought
00:16:55
impossible as a result of information
00:16:58
Theory Labs develop Unix an operating
00:17:00
system initially designed for internal
00:17:02
use to replace the analog process of
00:17:05
telecommunication
00:17:06
switching it was created by Ken Thompson
00:17:08
and Dennis Richie who were looking for a
00:17:10
platform to run the game space travel
00:17:12
believe it or not from Unix came the C
00:17:14
programming language developed by Dennis
00:17:16
1972 C was designed to be a highle
00:17:19
language with low-level capabilities
00:17:21
allowing programmers to write efficient
00:17:22
code with direct access to the hardware
00:17:24
building on C vorn St STP at Bell Labs
00:17:27
later developed C++ C and C++ became the
00:17:30
backbone of modern software development
00:17:32
Unix itself became Linux and Mac OS is
00:17:34
built on Unix
00:17:38
3 all of this Innovation didn't happen
00:17:41
in a vacuum it was underpinned by the
00:17:43
unique environment at Bell Labs a place
00:17:45
fueled by the financial backing of a
00:17:47
monopoly that same Monopoly would be its
00:17:53
downfall 18t the parent company Abel
00:17:55
Labs held a monopoly over the entire
00:17:58
telephone services in the United States
00:17:59
for much of the 20th century there was
00:18:01
growing concern that AT&T's Monopoly
00:18:03
stifled competition and innovation in
00:18:05
the Telecommunications industry over the
00:18:07
years the government intervened many
00:18:09
times leading to various legal battles
00:18:11
and restructurings the most significant
00:18:13
change came in 1984 when the US
00:18:15
Department of Justice mandated the
00:18:16
breakup of AT&T in an antitrust
00:18:18
settlement this led to the divesture of
00:18:20
AT&T's local telephone operations which
00:18:22
are split into seven independent
00:18:24
Regional Bell operating companies often
00:18:27
referred to as the baby bells this
00:18:29
breakup marked the end of an era for
00:18:30
Bell Labs the lab itself was split as
00:18:33
well with parts of it remaining with
00:18:34
AT&T and others becoming part of newly
00:18:37
formed companies the Monopoly that had
00:18:39
funded and fostered such a prolific
00:18:40
period of innovation was no more there's
00:18:43
a certain irony here the innovations
00:18:45
that Babs produced especially in
00:18:47
electronics and Computing helped create
00:18:48
the new Industries and competitors that
00:18:50
ultimately pressured AT&T's Monopoly
00:18:52
status by inventing technologies that
00:18:54
would become ubiquitous They Se the
00:18:56
seeds for a more competitive and
00:18:57
diversified t Communications landscape
00:19:00
in many ways the Monopoly enabled more
00:19:01
Innovation from a single lab than the
00:19:03
world had ever seen
00:19:05
prior I got so excited about the
00:19:07
research for this video that I tweeted a
00:19:09
bunch of pictures of Babs just sort of
00:19:10
ustruck with their Innovation and a lot
00:19:13
of people in the replies had one
00:19:14
question who are the Bell Labs of today
00:19:18
well oddly enough on the same day that I
00:19:19
tweeted that Deep Mind from Google
00:19:21
released a significant update to Alpha
00:19:23
fold releasing Alpha fold 3 a
00:19:25
groundbreaking AI system that predicts
00:19:27
protein folding which is is an immensely
00:19:29
complicated thing to do I think some
00:19:32
potential candidates for very profitable
00:19:34
cash engines that can fund research
00:19:36
organizations might be stripe funding
00:19:39
Arc institute there's of course SpaceX
00:19:42
as a total organization which is
00:19:43
developing starlink as its own cash
00:19:44
engine to fund its research and
00:19:47
exploration of Mars I think these are
00:19:49
some contemporary examples of
00:19:50
organizations uh investing heavily
00:19:53
long-term high-risk reward projects but
00:19:55
are they the Bell abs of today this
00:19:57
brings me to the dichotomy between
00:19:58
startups and research labs in our
00:20:00
current landscape on the one hand you
00:20:02
need money and Commercial Instinct often
00:20:04
drives Innovation but the kind of
00:20:05
groundbreaking work that happened at
00:20:07
Bell Labs exists well outside of the
00:20:09
typical Venture Capital window of
00:20:10
Interest Bell Labs was all about the
00:20:13
long game and you could have had that
00:20:14
without a massive cash engine in a
00:20:16
monopoly I think a good note to land on
00:20:19
is is just how important the individual
00:20:22
is in Innovation Bell abbs at its height
00:20:24
was 15,000 people with 12200 phds but
00:20:27
there were a key few people that had
00:20:29
some of the biggest breakthroughs and
00:20:31
discoveries there are examples of this
00:20:32
outside at Bell Labs too think of Bill
00:20:34
nson who is instrumental in getting the
00:20:36
US manufacturing base ripping during
00:20:38
World War II or J Robert Oppenheimer and
00:20:41
general Leslie Groves in the Manhattan
00:20:43
Project and of course mvin Kelly and The
00:20:45
Young Turks at Bell Labs Kelly fostered
00:20:48
an environment where long-term thinking
00:20:49
wasn't just encouraged but was ingrained
00:20:51
in the very fabric of the lab his
00:20:53
leadership style was pivotal in making
00:20:55
Bell Labs the PowerHouse of innovation
00:20:57
it was I think that's the thing that I'm
00:20:59
most obsessed about with in studying
00:21:01
success cases like babbs or the
00:21:03
companies that are innovating and
00:21:04
pushing the ones today is the impact
00:21:06
that single people can have in our grand
00:21:09
story of innovation the reason that I
00:21:11
film S3 is to try to get an inside Peak
00:21:15
to what super ambitious and Innovative
00:21:17
teams are up to today before they go on
00:21:19
and do the next big thing we have some
00:21:21
pretty exciting episodes coming up here
00:21:23
in S3 where I think some of the
00:21:25
Innovation going on feels like some of
00:21:27
the early days of bell apps
00:21:33
thank you for watching this new style of
00:21:35
of S3 um let's know what you think uh
00:21:37
it's kind of this new hosted historical
00:21:39
format um I really enjoy exploring these
00:21:42
deep Dives uh into the stories and
00:21:44
Behind These technological revolutions
00:21:46
and I hope you do too um if you've got
00:21:48
any cool lore or stories about Bell Labs
00:21:50
that we didn't cover or any thoughts
00:21:52
that you want to share after watching
00:21:53
this we'd love to hear them in the
00:21:54
comments I'm sure that some people have
00:21:56
like friends or family that worked there
00:21:58
be cool to hear your your take um and
00:22:01
before I go I want to close off with a
00:22:02
passage near the very end of the book
00:22:04
The Idea Factory by John cner that this
00:22:06
video is heavily based on do not watch
00:22:08
this part if you don't want to hear the
00:22:09
very ending of this
00:22:11
book Pierce hoped privately that the
00:22:13
work he and his colleagues did would
00:22:15
someday be broadly recognized what
00:22:17
momentos will our heirs have of our
00:22:19
romantic present to tell them that men
00:22:21
created the things which they take for
00:22:23
granted he feared that any memories of
00:22:25
the makers would perish too I'm afraid
00:22:27
that there will be little tangible left
00:22:29
in a later age to remind our heirs that
00:22:31
we were men rather than cogs in a
00:22:35
[Music]
00:22:36
machine thanks for watching uh hope you
00:22:39
enjoyed this and until next week keep on
00:22:41
building the future
00:22:43
[Music]
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