transistor

One of the results of the US free market economy that is seldom mentioned is innovation. The United States has won 60% of the Nobel prizes in chemistry, physics, medicine and economics and many other winners were doing their work in US universities. The finest research facilities are in the US and much of the cost is provided by private companies looking for new ways to make money. I was a freshman at the University of Illinois in 1955 and one of my professors, a man by the name of John Bardeen working with grant money provided by AT@T developed the transistor. That ranks right up there with fire and the wheel. It is hard to count the number of industries and the number of jobs this one item has produced. President Obama once said that no one becomes rich in America on their own because they make use of public services but people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs only come along once in a generation and other people have use of all the same public facilities.