4 ms·
AFAIK triodes (vacuum tubes) were discovered by accident. Could you not say that a MOSFET works on a principle very similar to a triode, but on a much smaller s
by tachyonbeam 7y ago
AFAIK triodes (vacuum tubes) were discovered by accident. Could you not say that a MOSFET works on a principle very similar to a triode, but on a much smaller scale (small enough to exploit quantum phenomena)? I think it's possible that someone could discover MOSFETs by accident, maybe after theorizing that you could build triodes on a microscopic scale.
- theamk 7y agoSure, they can build a MOSFET. But it will be pretty bad, you need to have a theory of operations before you can make reliable, powerful and small device we have today. In fact, a field effect transistor (the FET part of MOSFET) was discovered in 1925 and 1934, but nothing happened with it until the theory was there, and someone (Shockley) spent years refining the theory with experiments.