Butterfly Effects and Legacies

Abstract

Reports on the invention of the transistor and examines how it exemplifies the "butterfly effect." The history of this invention overflows with minutiae and monumental consequences. Or, to put it more prosaically, this invention set off a series of butterfly effects. A butterfly effect arises when an invention creates unintended consequences far removed from the original invention. These effects are named after an old metaphor that describes how a butterfly’s wing flapping in one location causes a ripple in the wind that leads to a tornado somewhere else. Butterfly effects are worth recalling on any seventy-fifth anniversary. In this case, small economic decisions accumulated after inventions, evolving into something different than what motivated the invention in the first place. A hefty dose of managerial foresight and a fair amount of human folly then accumulated. In other words, the creation of the transistor would have improved life so much less if management at Bell Labs had not acted sagely or so much more had contemporaries not screwed up in such quirky ways.