Bell Labs

Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) is a research and scientific development company that currently belongs to Alcatel-Lucent. Its headquarters are located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, in addition to other laboratories around the rest of the United States and in other countries.

The historic laboratory originated in the late 19th century as the Volta Laboratory and Bureau created by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell Labs was also at one time a division of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (ATT Corporation), half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.

Researchers working at Bell Labs are credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the charge-coupled device (CCD), Information Theory, the UNIX operating system, the C programming language, S programming language and the C++ programming language. Eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs

Book: The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner ISBN:0143122797

• http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/books/review/the-idea-factory-by-jon-gertner.html