An Element that changed the world

I have just finished John Browne's new book, 'Seven Elements that Changed the World". It was the last section, on silicon that really struck me. That humble element has changed the world in four different technological areas; three of which are still having a profound impact today.

Firstly there is glass, whether it is the highly decorative ornamental glass from Murano in Venice or a common window we tend to take it as a given. However, it was only in 1845 that the window tax was abolished in the UK and the use of glass started to transform our built environment. This was given a kick start by the Great Exhibition and its Crystal Palace which contained 300,000 panes of glass. Glass hasn't just changed our homes and cities, it also changed our view of the whole universe when Galileo looked through his telescope and realised that the Earth wasn't at the centre of the Universe. 

Secondly, we have the use of silicon in photovoltaic cells to produce electricity. The scientific breakthrough came from Chaplin, Pearson and Fuller working at Bell Labs in the mid 1950s. As Browne puts it, this discovery was so important because " in one year, more energy reaches the earth's surface from the Sun than will ever be extracted from all the sources of coal, oil, natural gas and uranium. In one day, the earth's surface receives 130,000 times the total world demand for electricity" Whilst in the UK solar is still only a niche product it is revolutionising the lives of people in sub Saharan Africa who don't have access to mains electricity.

If that wasn't enough then silicon forms the base material of the integrated circuits that are at the heart of all modern computing, including the iPad I am typing this entry on. The forerunner, the transistor, another product of Bell labs, won for its creators Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain a Nobel prize and after a period of development up until the mid 1960s "the exponential rate of increase in computing power and the consequential reduction in the cost of that power has been going on ever since." As a result, Browne points out, the typical smartphone contains more computing power than at the whole of NASA when men landed on the moon.

Silicon is transforming one last part of our lives; communication. The use of fibre optic cables is the backbone of the internet which connects more of us everyday to more and more data and information. I can be half way round the world and download vast reams of Board papers in seconds. At times this doesn't feel like progress! But when you stop and think of the revolution in communications we have seen in our lifetime it is incredible.

If the 18th to century were the Carbon age then the 21st century certainly feels like the silicon century.