Walter Houser Brattain (; February 10, 1902 – October 13, 1987) was an American physicist at Bell Labs who, along with fellow scientists John Bardeen and William Shockley, invented the point-contact transistor in December 1947. They shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention. Brattain devoted much of his life to research on surface states. Biography Walter Brattain was born in Amoy (now Xiamen), Fujian, Qing China, to American parents Ross R. Brattain and Ottilie Houser Brattain. Ross R. Brattain was a teacher at the Ting-Wen Institute, a private school for Chinese boys; Ottilie Houser Brattain was a gifted mathematician. Both were graduates of Whitman College. Ottilie and baby Walter returned to the United States in 1903, and Ross followed shortly afterward. The family lived for several years in Spokane, Washington, then settled on a cattle ranch near Tonasket, Washington in 1911. Brattain attended high school in Washington, spending one year at Queen Anne High School in Seattle, two years at Tonasket High School, and one year at Moran School for Boys on Bainbridge Island. Brattain then attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where he studied with Benjamin H. Brown (physics) and Walter A. Bratton (mathematics). He earned a bachelor's degree from Whitman in 1924, with a double major in physics and mathematics. Brattain and his classmates Walker Bleakney, Vladimir Rojansky and E. John Workman would all go on to have distinguished careers, later becoming known as "the four horsemen of physics". Brattain's brother Robert, who followed him at Whitman College, also became a physicist. Brattain earned a Master of Arts from the University of Oregon in Eugene in 1926, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1929. At Minnesota, Brattain had the opportunity to study the new field of quantum mechanics under John Hasbrouck Van Vleck. His thesis, supervised by John T. Tate, was Efficiency of Excitation by Electron Impact and Anomalous Scattering in Mercury Vapor. Walter Brattain married twice. His first wife was chemist Keren Gilmore. They were married in 1935 and had a son, William G. Brattain, in 1943. Keren Gilmore Brattain died on April 10, 1957. The following year, Brattain married Mrs. Emma Jane (Kirsch) Miller, a mother of three children. He moved to Seattle in the 1970s and lived there until his death from Alzheimer's disease on October 13, 1987. He is buried at City Cemetery in Pomeroy, Washington. Scientific