Bell Labs facts for kids

For the building, see Bell Laboratories Building. For the part that continues under AT&T, see AT&T Labs.

Quick facts for kids
Nokia Bell Labs
Logo since 2023
An aerial photo of Bell Labs' headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey in 2012
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Telecommunication, information technology, material science
Founded	January 1925; 100 years ago (1925-01) (as Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc.)
Headquarters	Murray Hill, New Jersey, U.S.
Parent	AT&T Corporation (1925–1996) Western Electric (1925–1983) Lucent (1996–2006) Alcatel-Lucent (2006–2016 Nokia (2016–present)
Subsidiaries	Nokia Shanghai Bell

Bell Labs is an American company that focuses on research and scientific development. It's like a super-smart invention factory! Scientists and engineers at Bell Labs have created many amazing things.

They helped develop radio astronomy, the transistor (a tiny switch that made computers possible), the laser, and solar cells. They also created the Unix operating system and programming languages like C and C++.

People who worked at Bell Labs have won ten Nobel Prizes and five Turing Awards for their incredible discoveries.

Bell Labs started way back in the late 1800s. It was first part of a company called Western Electric. In 1925, it became Bell Telephone Laboratories, owned by Western Electric and American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). In the 1960s, the main office moved to Murray Hill, New Jersey. Today, Bell Labs is owned by Nokia, a big technology company, which bought it in 2016.

How Did Bell Labs Begin?

Alexander Graham Bell's Early Research

Bell's 1893 Volta Bureau building in Washington, D.C.

In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, won a special award called the Volta Prize. He used the money to start the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

This lab focused on studying, recording, and sending sounds. Bell used the money he earned from his inventions to do more research. He also helped deaf people learn and share knowledge.

In 1893, Bell built a new building just for his lab. This building is now a famous historical place. Even after inventing the telephone, Bell kept doing his own research. He didn't get too involved with the big Bell System company.

The First Steps of Bell Labs

The Bell Patent Association was formed in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell and his partners. This was when they filed the first patents for the telephone.

A year later, the first telephone company, Bell Telephone Company, was created. It later became part of the American Bell Telephone Company.

By 1889, the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) took control of American Bell and the Bell System. AT&T focused on research for service providers.

Where Bell Labs Has Been Located

The Bell Laboratories Building, built at 463 West Street in New York City in 1925

In 1896, Western Electric, which made phones and other equipment for AT&T, bought a building at 463 West Street in New York City. This helped them bring their manufacturing and engineering teams together.

Over the years, Bell Labs built labs in many different places.

In 1915, the first radio transmissions were made from a small shack in Montauk, Long Island.
That same year, the first transoceanic (across the ocean) radio telephone tests happened in Arlington County, Virginia.
A radio lab was set up in Cliffwood, New Jersey in 1919.
In 1925, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. was officially formed. It brought together all the research and development for the Bell System. The company had 3,600 engineers and scientists. Its New York City space grew to 400,000 square feet.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Bell Labs added more outdoor testing sites.

In Gulfport, Mississippi, they tested telephone poles to see how to make them last longer.
At Deal, New Jersey, they worked on ship-to-shore radio calls.
In Whippany, New Jersey, they developed powerful radio transmitters.
In Chester Township, New Jersey, they did outdoor tests for new plant developments.
In Holmdel Township, New Jersey, they built a new radio reception lab.

By the early 1940s, many Bell Labs scientists moved away from busy New York City. In 1967, the main headquarters officially moved to Murray Hill, New Jersey.

Other important Bell Labs locations in New Jersey included Holmdel, Crawford Hill, and Whippany. Today, only Murray Hill and Crawford Hill are still Bell Labs locations.

The largest group of employees was once in Naperville-Lisle, near Chicago. Before 2001, about 11,000 people worked there! Other locations were in Indiana, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Many of these older locations have since closed or become smaller.

The Old Bell Labs Holmdel Complex, located about 20 miles south of New York City, in New Jersey

The famous Bell Labs Holmdel Complex in New Jersey, a huge building designed by Eero Saarinen, closed in 2007. It's now being redeveloped into a mixed-use project called Bell Works.

Current Bell Labs Locations (2024)

Nokia Bell Labs has labs around the world today:

Antwerp, Belgium
Budapest, Hungary
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Espoo, Finland
Munich, Germany
Murray Hill, New Jersey, U.S. (Global Headquarters)
Oulu, Finland
Paris-Saclay, France
Shanghai, China
Stuttgart, Germany

They also have research spots in Sunnyvale, California, US, and Tampere, Finland. The Naperville, Illinois location is now called the Chicago Innovation Center.

Amazing Discoveries and Inventions

Bell Laboratories' logo used from 1969 until 1983

Bell Labs is known as one of the best research places ever. They developed many amazing technologies. These include radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, information theory, the Unix operating system, and the C and C++ programming languages. They also invented solar cells, the charge-coupled device (CCD), and many other communication technologies.

Key Inventions from the 1920s

In 1924, Walter A. Shewhart created the control chart. This helped companies improve the quality of their products. It was the start of modern quality control, like Six Sigma.
In 1926, Bell Labs invented an early system for making movies with sound.
In 1927, a Bell team sent the first long-distance television images. They sent pictures of Herbert Hoover from Washington to New York!
In 1928, Harold Stephen Black invented the negative feedback system. This is used in amplifiers to make sounds clearer.

Breakthroughs in the 1930s

Reconstruction of the directional antenna used in the discovery of radio emission of extraterrestrial origin by Karl Guthe Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1932

In 1931, Karl Jansky discovered radio astronomy. He found radio waves coming from the center of our galaxy while studying static on shortwave communications.
In 1931 and 1932, the labs made early high-quality, long-playing, and even stereo recordings.
In 1937, the vocoder (a device for compressing speech) and the Voder (the first electronic speech synthesizer) were developed. Clinton Davisson won a Nobel Prize for his work on electron diffraction, which helped create solid-state electronics.

Innovations from the 1940s

A replica of the first transistor, a point-contact germanium device, invented at Bell Laboratories in 1947

In the early 1940s, the photovoltaic cell (solar cell) was developed.
In 1943, Bell Labs created SIGSALY. This was the first digital scrambled speech system, used by the Allies in World War II.
In 1947, the transistor was invented by John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain, and William Shockley. This was a huge invention! They won the Nobel Prize in Physics for it in 1956.
Also in 1947, Richard Hamming invented Hamming codes. These codes help find and fix errors in data.
In 1948, Claude Shannon published his famous work on information theory. This paper helped create the field of modern communication.

Early Computers (Calculators)

Bell Labs also built a series of complex calculators:

Model I (1939): For complex number calculations.
Model II (1943): Introduced error detection (self-checking).
Model III (1944): For calculating how bullets fly.
Model V (1946-1947): A general-purpose computer.

Progress in the 1950s

In 1952, William Gardner Pfann developed zone melting. This method helps purify semiconductors.
In 1954, the first modern solar cell was invented at Bell Labs.
In 1956, TAT-1, the first transatlantic communications cable to carry phone calls, was laid across the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1957, Max Mathews created MUSIC, one of the first computer programs to play electronic music.
In 1958, Arthur Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes first described the laser.
In 1959, Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng invented the metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). This tiny switch is now in almost all electronic devices!

Innovations from the 1960s

The patent for the electret microphone, an invention by Gerhard Sessler and James West

In 1960, Ali Javan successfully operated the first gas laser. This was the first laser that could shine continuously.
In 1962, the electret microphone was invented by Gerhard Sessler and James E. West.
Also in 1962, Telstar, the first communications satellite, was launched. It was designed and built by Bell Labs. The first worldwide TV broadcast happened on July 23, 1962, with a press conference by President Kennedy.
In 1964, the carbon dioxide laser was invented by Kumar Patel.
In 1965, Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background. This discovery helped prove the Big Bang theory, and they won a Nobel Prize for it in 1978.
In 1966, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) was developed. This is a key technology for wireless services.
In 1968, molecular beam epitaxy was developed. This allows tiny computer chips and lasers to be made one atomic layer at a time.
In 1969, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson created the UNIX operating system. This system is still used today in many forms.
Also in 1969, the charge-coupled device (CCD) was invented by Willard Boyle and George E. Smith. This device is like an electronic eye and is used in almost all digital cameras. They won the Nobel Prize in Physics for it in 2009.

Advancements in the 1970s

The C programming language was developed in 1972

The 1970s and 1980s saw many computer-related inventions at Bell Labs. These inventions were part of the personal computing revolution.

Around 1970, Bell Labs developed the coax-22 cable. This cable could carry 132,000 phone calls at once!
In 1971, Erna Schneider Hoover invented an improved system for computerized telephone switching. She received one of the first software patents for her work.
In 1972, Dennis Ritchie developed the C programming language. This language is still very important today.
Also in 1972, the AWK programming language was designed.
In 1976, optical fiber systems were first tested in Georgia. These fibers carry information using light.
In 1977, Bell Labs started making its own microprocessor, the BELLMAC-8. In 1980, they showed off the first single-chip 32-bit microprocessor.

Developments in the 1980s

Bell Laboratories logo, used from 1984 until 1995

In the 1980s, the Plan 9 operating system was developed.
In 1980, the TDMA digital cellular phone technology was patented.
In 1982, the Bell Labs Fellows Award was started. This award honors scientists and engineers who make amazing contributions. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were among the first to receive this honor.
Also in 1982, the fractional quantum Hall effect was discovered. This led to a Nobel Prize in 1998 for Horst Störmer, Robert B. Laughlin, and Daniel C. Tsui.
In 1984, Karmarkar's algorithm for linear programming was developed.
In 1985, laser cooling was used to slow down atoms. Steven Chu and his team did this work.
Also in 1985, the programming language AMPL was developed. Bell Labs also received the National Medal of Technology for its many contributions to modern communication.
In 1985, the C++ programming language had its first commercial release. Bjarne Stroustrup started developing C++ at Bell Labs in 1979.
In 1988, TAT-8 became the first transatlantic fiber-optic cable. This cable could carry 40,000 phone calls!
In the late 1980s, researchers invented DSL technology. This allowed for faster internet speeds over regular phone lines.

Achievements in the 1990s

The Lucent logo bearing the "Bell Labs Innovations" tagline

In the early 1990s, Bell Labs explored ways to increase modem speeds to 56K.
In 1992, Jack Salz, Jack Winters, and Richard D. Gitlin developed technology that greatly increased the capacity of wireless systems. This technology is now known as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) and is used in cell phones and Wi-Fi.
In 1994, the quantum cascade laser was invented. Also, Peter Shor created his quantum factorization algorithm.
In 1996, SCALPEL electron lithography was invented. This technology can print tiny features on microchips.
In 1996, AT&T spun off Bell Labs into a new company called Lucent Technologies. AT&T kept a small group of researchers who formed AT&T Labs.
In 1997, the smallest practical transistor (60 nanometers wide) was built.
In 1998, the first optical router was invented.

The 21st Century at Bell Labs

The pre-2013 logo of Alcatel-Lucent, the parent company of Bell Labs

In 2000, Bell Labs developed DNA machine prototypes and the first electrically powered organic laser. They also created a large map of cosmic dark matter.
In 2005, Jeong H. Kim became the President of Bell Laboratories.
In 2006, Bell Labs' parent company, Lucent Technologies, merged with Alcatel to form Alcatel-Lucent.
In 2009, Willard Boyle and George Smith won the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the charge-coupled device (CCD).

Bell Labs in the 2010s

The entrance sign to Nokia Bell Labs at the company's headquarters in New Jersey in 2016

In 2013, Marcus Weldon became the President of Bell Labs. His goal was to bring Bell Labs back to the forefront of innovation.
In 2014, Bell Labs opened a new location in Tel Aviv, Israel.
In July 2014, Bell Labs broke the internet speed record with a new technology called XG-FAST. It promised speeds of 10 gigabits per second!
In 2014, Eric Betzig shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, which he started at Bell Labs.
In 2015, Nokia bought Alcatel-Lucent, making Bell Labs part of Nokia.
In 2016, Nokia Bell Labs achieved a data rate of one terabit per second in an optical communications test.
In 2018, Arthur Ashkin shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on "optical tweezers." He developed these at Bell Labs in the 1980s.

Bell Labs in the 2020s

In 2020, Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman shared the Turing Award for their work on compilers, which they started at Bell Labs.
In 2021, Nokia reorganized Bell Labs into two groups: Bell Labs Core Research (for long-term, big ideas) and Bell Labs Solutions Research (for shorter-term solutions).
In 2023, Louis Brus shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on "quantum dots," which he began at Bell Labs.
In December 2023, Nokia announced plans to move the Murray Hill Bell Labs facility to a new, modern research center in New Brunswick, New Jersey by 2028.

Awards and Honors

Bell Labs researchers have won many top awards for their work.

Nobel Prizes

Ten Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work done at Bell Labs:

1937: Clinton Davisson for showing that matter has wave-like properties.
1956: John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley for inventing the first transistors.
1977: Philip W. Anderson for understanding how electrons behave in different materials.
1978: Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson for discovering the cosmic microwave background radiation, which supports the Big Bang theory.
1997: Steven Chu for developing ways to cool and trap atoms with laser light.
1998: Horst Störmer, Robert Laughlin, and Daniel Tsui for discovering and explaining the fractional quantum Hall effect.
2009: Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for inventing the charge-coupled device (CCD) imaging sensors.
2014: Eric Betzig for his work in super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.
2018: Arthur Ashkin for his work on "optical tweezers" and their use in biology.
2023: Louis Brus for his work on "quantum dots."

Turing Awards

The Turing Award is like the Nobel Prize for computer science. Bell Labs researchers have won it five times:

1968: Richard Hamming for his work on error-correcting codes.
1983: Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie for creating the Unix operating system.
1986: Robert Tarjan for achievements in designing algorithms and data structures.
2018: Yann LeCun and Yoshua Bengio for their work in Deep Learning.
2020: Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman for their work on compilers.

Emmy Awards, Grammy Award, and Academy Award

Bell Labs has also won awards for its contributions to entertainment technology:

Emmy Awards: Five times for digital television, network DVR, fiber-optic cable, the CCD, and media file format standardization.
Grammy Award: Once in 2006 for technical contributions to recording.
Academy Award: Once in 1937 for sound equipment used in movies.

Bell Labs Presidents

	Period	Name of President
1	1925–1940	Frank Baldwin Jewett
2	1940–1951	Oliver Buckley
3	1951–1959	Mervin Kelly
4	1959–1973	James Brown Fisk
5	1973–1979	William Oliver Baker
6	1979–1991	Ian Munro Ross
7	1991–1995	John Sullivan Mayo
8	1995–1999	Dan Stanzione
9	1999–2001	Arun Netravali
10	2001–2005	Bill O'Shea
11	2005–2013	Jeong Hun Kim
12	2013–2013	Gee Rittenhouse
13	2013–2021	Marcus Weldon
	2021–	Thierry Klein (Bell Labs Solutions Research)
	2021–	Peter Vetter (Bell Labs Core Research)

Famous People Who Worked at Bell Labs

__ Nobel Prize Winner
__ Turing Award Winner

	Alumni	What They Are Known For
	Alfred Aho	Helped create important ideas in compiler design (how computer code is translated).
	Ali Javan	Invented the gas laser in 1960.
	Arno Allan Penzias	Discovered background radiation from the Big Bang and won the Nobel Prize.
	Amos E. Joel Jr.	Made many contributions to telephone switching systems.
	Arthur Ashkin	Invented optical tweezers, which use lasers to grab tiny particles. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this.
	Bishnu Atal	Developed ways to process and encode speech, used in mobile phones.
	Bjarne Stroustrup	Created the C++ programming language.
	Brian Kernighan	Helped create Unix, AWK, and AMPL. He also wrote a famous book about the C programming language.
	Claude Shannon	Founded information theory, which is about how information is sent and received. He also helped create the ideas behind digital computers.
	Clinton Davisson	Showed that electrons act like waves, which is a key idea in quantum mechanics. He won the Nobel Prize.
	Daniel Tsui	Discovered a new form of quantum fluid and won the Nobel Prize.
	Dawon Kahng	Invented the MOSFET (a type of transistor) with Mohamed M. Atalla in 1959. This invention changed the electronics industry.
	Dennis Ritchie	Created the C programming language and, with Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system.
	Douglas McIlroy	Came up with the idea for Unix pipelines and developed many Unix tools.
	Edward Lawry Norton	Famous for Norton's theorem, which simplifies electrical circuits.
	Eric Betzig	Developed advanced fluorescence microscopy and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
	Eric Schmidt	Later became the CEO of Google.
	Erna Schneider Hoover	Invented a computerized method for telephone switching.
	George E. Smith	Invented the charge-coupled device (CCD) with Willard Boyle, which is used in digital cameras. He won the Nobel Prize.
	Horst Ludwig Störmer	Discovered a new form of quantum fluid and won the Nobel Prize.
	John Hopcroft	Won the Turing Award for his work on algorithms and data structures.
	Jeffrey Ullman	Helped create important ideas in compiler design.
	John Bardeen	Invented the point-contact transistor with William Shockley and Walter Brattain. He won the Nobel Prize.
	Jon Hall	A leader in the Linux community.
	Ken Thompson	Designed and built the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B programming language.
	Louis Brus	A Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry for his work on quantum dots.
	Margaret H. Wright	A pioneer in numerical computing and optimization.
	Maurice Karnaugh	Famous for the Karnaugh map, a tool used in digital logic design.
	Max Mathews	Wrote MUSIC, one of the first computer programs to create sound.
	Mohamed M. Atalla	Developed the silicon surface passivation process and invented the MOSFET with Dawon Kahng.
	Moungi Bawendi	A Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry for improving the quality and production of quantum dots.
	Narendra Karmarkar	Developed Karmarkar's algorithm, a method for solving complex math problems.
	Neil deGrasse Tyson	A famous American astrophysicist and science communicator. He was a summer intern at Bell Labs.
	Neil Sloane	Created the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, a huge collection of number patterns.
	Persi Diaconis	Known for studying randomness, like coin flipping and shuffling cards.
	Philip Warren Anderson	Won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the electronic structure of materials.
	Richard Hamming	Created Hamming codes, which help correct errors in data.
	Robert Laughlin	Discovered a new form of quantum fluid and won the Nobel Prize.
	Rob Pike	A member of the Unix team and helped create the Plan 9 operating system.
	Robert Tarjan	Won the Turing Award for his work on algorithms and data structures.
	Robert W. Wilson	Discovered background radiation from the Big Bang and won the Nobel Prize.
	Shirley Jackson	The first African American woman to earn a physics PH.D. and worked on important theoretical physics.
	Steve Bourne	Created the Bourne shell, a command-line interpreter for Unix.
	Steven Chu	Won the Nobel Prize in Physics for cooling and trapping atoms with lasers.
	Stuart Feldman	Created the computer program make for Unix systems.
	Trevor Hastie	Known for his work in applied statistics and machine learning.
	Walter Houser Brattain	Invented the point-contact transistor with John Bardeen and William Shockley. He won the Nobel Prize.
	Walter Lincoln Hawkins	Developed protective coverings for cables.
	Willard Boyle	Invented the charge-coupled device (CCD) with George E. Smith. He won the Nobel Prize.
	William Shockley	Invented the point-contact transistor with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. He won the Nobel Prize.
	Yann LeCun	A founding father of convolutional neural networks and won the Turing Award for his work in deep learning.
	Yoshua Bengio	Won the Turing Award for his work in deep learning.
	Zhenan Bao	Developed the first all-plastic transistor.

Bell Labs Prize

In 2014, Bell Labs started the Bell Labs Prize. This is a competition for inventors to share their ideas in information and communication technologies. Winners can receive cash awards of up to $100,000!

Bell Labs Technology Showcase

At the Murray Hill campus, there's a special exhibit called the Bell Labs Technology Showcase. It's 3,000 square feet and shows off all the amazing discoveries and developments from Bell Labs. It's open to the public!

Images for kids

Whippany Bell Labs was an AT&T location from the mid-1920s until 1996.