5.09 - The Integrated Circuit

Photo available at TexasInstruments.com.

Jack Kilby's integrated circuit set off the "Second Industrial Revolution" and I want to believe that it was the product of Texans' finely-tuned attention to energy density, going back to the likes of Gail Borden and every plains Indian that ever sat a horse. And yet, is the integrated circuit perhaps a better example of land-obsessed Texans' failure to appreciate the potential of the twentieth century's greatest invention?