Bardeen

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. American physicist who co-invented the transistor and later shared a second Nobel Prize for developing the theory of superconductivity
2. Surname of the American electrical engineer and physicist, co-inventor of the first working transistor and a two-time Nobel laureate
3. The twentieth-century American scientist known for co-creating the transistor and for the BCS theory explaining superconductivity

Etymology: Bardeen is best known as a surname, borne most famously by the American physicist John Bardeen. He shared the physics Nobel Prize for co-inventing the transistor, the small semiconductor device that replaced bulky vacuum tubes in electronics. He later won the prize a second time, shared with two colleagues, for the theory of superconductivity, which explains how some materials conduct electricity with no resistance. No other person has won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice.