2000年11月10日,一个来自美国堪萨斯州的人——就是那个数学成绩太差、从没有受过多少正规物理学教育而被麻省理工学院拒收的家伙,获得了诺贝尔物理学奖。看起来有点奇怪,杰克·圣克莱尔·基尔比并不是一名物理学家。然而,瑞典皇家科学院有意忽略了这个细节,因为毕竟基尔比作出了上半个世纪最有价值的发明——微芯片。为此,基尔比点燃了信息时代的火炬。 On November 10, 2000, a man from Kansas, USA, who was a poor student of mathematics and never received much formal physics education and was rejected by MIT, won the Nobel Prize in physics. It may seem strange that Jack St. Claire Kilby is not a physicist. However, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences deliberately ignored this detail because after all, Kilby made the most valuable invention of the last half--the microchip. For this reason, Kilby ignited the torch of the information age.