In 1947, bell labs launched a revolution with the introduction of the transistor, enabling everything from radios to computers to be made smaller and more cheaply. The transistor also made possible a less visible technology, one that allowed telecommunications to explode: electronic telephone switching. But the transistor was only one component of this development. Without software created by a researcher during her recovery from childbirth, the highly automated, computerized telecommunications age we take for granted would have been on indefinite hold.

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