Letters December 25, 2000 Issue

YOUR LETTERS

with contributions from Peter F. Barker, Evelyn E. Brattain, J.L.S.

Just a few lines of appreciation for the special issue of the Sentinel (October 30). It's going to be shown to quite a lot of folk I know who can do with the spiritual uplift in its pages.

Peter F. Barker
Lyndhurst,
Republic of South Africa

As I was rereading the article "Invention and innovation" from the October 9 Sentinel I decided to write to clarify one sentence. Mr. [John L.] Selover mentioned "Dr. William Shockley, Nobel Prize winner for the invention of the transistor." This gave the impression that Dr. Shockley was the only one involved. As the daughter-in-law of Walter Brattain, I want to let readers know that Walter and John Bardeen discovered the transistor effect (actually on a day that Shockley was not at work), and they were co-winners with Shockley of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956. Walter liked to point out that it was a "discovery" of the transistor effect, and with humility he would state that he happened to be in the right place at the right time, but that the concept could have been discovered by others. We realize that it was an idea in divine Mind waiting to be brought forth and then made practical by individuals like Shockley.

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