Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors, with Applications to Transistor Electronics

New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc, 1950. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good +. First printing, octavo size, 587 pp., association copy owned by Charles Kittel. William Bradford Shockley, Jr. (1910-1989) managed the research group at Bell Labs and was one of three scientists (along with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain) who were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1956 in Physics for "their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect"  (n.b., quote from Wiki). This discovery, and the commercialization of such, directly led to the birth of Silicon Valley.

This copy is not only the first printing of this seminal work, but has written, on the front free endpaper, "C. Kittel" with the date of 1951 (the year directly following publication). It seems more than highly likely that our C. Kittel is the physicist Charles Kittel who also worked at Bell Labs from 1947 to 1951, and apparently worked quite closely with Shockley.  There is an extensive oral history interview of Alan Portis online on the web site of the American Institute of Physics, taken on June 15, 1982, which draws the connection between the two men.

An important work with a fascinating association.

___DESCRIPTION: Bound in full light blue cloth with the publisher's device and ruled borders blind-debossed on the front board, the spine with a stamped "label" of black with gilt lettering and horizontal rules, the name and date "C. Kittel / 1951" in black ink on the front free endpaper as set forth above, frontis a composite of half-tone reproductions of three photographs captioned "Experimental Techniques of Transistor Electronics", title page with publisher's device, publication date on the copyright date with no further printings noted (denoting this the first printing), the Preface by William Shockley dated October 21, 1950, this is a book written for scientists and is replete with scientific equations, charts and graphs; octavo size (9.25" by 6.25"), pagination: [i-vi] vii-xxiii [xxiv, blank] [1-2] 3-558 [559-560, blank] [561-563] being both sides of the rear free endpaper and the rear pastedown printed with Appendices B, C, and D.

___CONDITION: Volume almost near fine, with clean boards, straight corners without rubbing, a strong text block with solid hinges, the interior is clean and bright, and other than Kittel's name and the date as set forth above, entirely free of prior owner markings; the text block slightly cocked, light sunning to the boards and spine, black stamped spine label lightly rubbed, and some foxing to the half-title, frontis and title page (inexplicable, as the rest of the book is clean and without foxing).

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