View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-transistors-work-gokul-j-krishnan Modern computers are revolutionizing our lives, performing tasks unimaginable only decades ago. This was made...
========== Modern computers
are revolutionizing our lives,performing tasks unimaginable
only decades ago.This was made possible by a long series
of innovations,but there's one foundational invention
that almost everything else relies upon:the transistor.So what is that,and how does such a device enable
all the amazing things computers can do?Well, at their core, all computers
are just what the name implies,machines that perform
mathematical operations.The earliest computers were manual
counting devices,like the abacus,while later ones used mechanical parts.What made them computers was having
a way to represent numbersand a system for manipulating them.Electronic computers work the same way,but instead of physical arrangements,the numbers are represented
by electric vol...
