Short Circuits

According to the text, when was the transistor invented?

1947

Based on the text, how does the author likely feel about the future of transistors and nanotechnology?

hopeful and excited

Based on the text, what are some ways that smaller and cheaper transistors could transform our lives? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

it could transform our lives because it makes computers more powerful & gives them more room to put transistors on a chip.

Read these sentences from the text Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, consider the amazing shrinking transistor! Watch it contract a million times until it becomes a tiny dot visible only under a powerful microscope! As used in the text, what does the word "contract" mean?

shrink

If scientists can figure out how to etch transistors onto graphene, _________ they will be able to create much smaller and much faster computer chips.

then

What is this text mostly about?

transistors

Read this paragraph from the text. A transistor's ability to control the flow of electricity has made possible our entire computerized world. All computers depend on the binary system to convert electric signals into useful information. The binary system has only two numbers: 1 and 0. When a transistor allows electricity to flow through, it registers a 1. When the transistor stops the flow of electrons, it registers a 0. Millions or billions of those 1s and 0s, flashing off and on hundreds of millions of times a second in programmed patterns, enable your computer to do everything it does—from allowing you to play World of Warcraft to letting you type up a school science report.

Computers would not work without transistors.

Based on the text, how are today's transistors different from the first ones that were invented?

They are much smaller than the ones uses back in the old times. because the old ones were the size of a human fingernail. & the new ones cant be seen by the human eye.

How does the author describe the changes transistors have undergone over time?

Transistors have shrunk in size but increased in usefulness.