During his youth, Shockley was strongly influenced to pursue a scientific career by his father, a mining engineer, and by his mother, a mineral surveyor, both of whom encouraged his inclination toward science and mathematics. Shockley, furthermore, grew up in Palo Alto, California, the home of Stanford University, where he became acquainted with many people who were involved in scientific education and research.

After spending his first year of college at the University of California at Los Angeles, Shockley transferred to the California Institute of Technology, where he graduated in 1932 with a degree in physics. In 1936, Shockley earned a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and went to work at Bell Telephone Laboratories. For several years, Shockley conducted research on vacuum tubes, which were used to control and amplify electrical currents.

Mervin J. Kelly, the research director at Bell Laboratories, realized during the 1930s...