Shockley, William Bradford (1910–1989)

US physicist and computer scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for his study of semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor. He shared the award with his co-workers John Bardeen and Walter Brattain.

Shockley was born in London, England, to US parents who returned to the USA in 1913. He was at the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1936 he joined Bell Telephone Laboratories, working in the group headed by US physicists Clinton Davisson, and remained there until 1955. He then became director of the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory of Beckman Instruments, Inc, California, for research development and production of new transistor and other semiconductor devices. In 1963 he became first Alexander M Poniatoff professor of engineering science at Stanford University. At this time he began to pursue his interest in the origin of human intelligence, an area that embroiled him in much controversy owing to his recommendations for enforced sterilization of those with IQs below 100.

During the 1970s Shockley was criticized for his claim that blacks were genetically inferior to whites in terms of intelligence.

He donated his sperm to the bank in southern California established by the plastic-lens millionaire Robert Graham for the passing-on of the genetic code of geniuses.