IsisCB Explore-S!!

Article ID: CBB200628960

Variations and Combinations: Invention and Development of Quartz Clock Technologies at AT&T (2016)

Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology
Volume: 22
Pages: 78-114
Publication date: 2016
Language: English

URI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44242742

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Telecommunications Frequency standards Technological innovation Electronics Clocks and watches resonators 20th century United States American Telephone and Telegraph Company

Quartz clock technologies played a central role in twentieth century timekeeping, telecommunication and society at large. This article explores the process of the invention and construction of the first quartz clock by Warren Marrison and his associate researchers at AT&T, who needed the clock to monitor the corporation's self-maintained crystal-controlled frequency standard. The frequency standard was deemed essential for the needs of electronic telecommunication in the 1920s. Based on research notebooks and contemporary publications, this article examines the origins of the technology in the corporation's earlier tuning-fork-frequency-standard, which included the first electronic clock. Providing a detailed examination of the various electronic methods used by Marrison and his colleagues and their origins, the article examines the way the modern, scientifically educated inventor, working within a large industrial laboratory and enjoying its rich material and intellectual resources, collected, combined and adjusted the resources his disposal to produce novelty.

...More

Citation URI

stagingisis.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB200628960

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Farley, Tom; (Winter 2007)
The Cell Phone Revolution

Article Wolpin, Stewart; (Winter 2007)
Hold the Phone

Book Green, Venus; (2001)
Race on the Line: Gender, Labor, and Technology in the Bell System, 1880-1980

Article Friedel, Robert; (Fall 2010)
Transistor

Book Lamoreaux, Naomi R.; Sokoloff, Kenneth Lee; (2007)
Financing Innovation in the United States, 1870 to the Present

Article Cécile Aguillaume; (2006)
The Swiss Watchmaking Industry faced with Globalisation in the 1970s

Article Shimizu, Hiroshi; (2010)
Pitfalls of Open Innovation: The Technological Trajectory in Laser Diodes in the United States and Japan

Article Turdean, Cristina; (2011)
Casinos and the Digitization of the Slot Machine, 1950--1989

Article Roh, Chul-Young; (2008)
Telemedicine: What It Is, Where It Came From, and Where It Will Go

Article Yeang, Chen-Pang; (2012)
From Mechanical Objectivity to Instrumentalizing Theory: Inventing Radio Ionospheric Sounders

Book Andreas Fickers; Pascal Griset; (2019)
Communicating Europe : Technologies, information, events

Article Lars Bluma; (2007)
Heavy Snowfall, Elephants, Sabotage and other little incidents: The Role of Incident-innovations for the Evolution of the German Telephone System

Book Hugh R. Slotten; (2022)
Beyond Sputnik and the Space Race: The Origins of Global Satellite Communications

Book Douglas, Susan J.; (1987)
Inventing American broadcasting, 1899-1922

Article Vasily P. Borisov; (2016)
Technology in Russia: History, Events, Views

Book Jeffrey Sconce; (2019)
The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity

Article Bátiz-Lazo, Bernardo; Reid, Robert J. K.; (2011)
The Development of Cash-Dispensing Technology in the UK

Article Mills, Mara; (2011)
Hearing Aids and the History of Electronics Miniaturization

Article Sandström, Christian; (2011)
Hasselblad and the Shift to Digital Imaging

Article Lécuyer, Christophe; Ueyama, Takahiro; (2013)
The Logics of Materials Innovation: The Case of Gallium Nitride and Blue Light Emitting Diodes