3) I am not a Scientist, but an Engineer.

  
Picture A(Left) Jack Kilby speaking at his last press conference in Japan.
Picture B(Right) Commemorative stamps which were handed out at that time.

The last opportunity for me to meet Kilby was on September 9th, 2000, at a press conference in Tokyo. After a short comment by Kilby, we moved onto the Q&A session and I first asked, “Since your last visit to Japan, is there anything this time that has left a deep impression in your mind?” In reply, he said in his faltering way of speech he replied, “What impressed me the most was that I saw people, even as young as elementary school children with a mobile phones in one hand and talking, as if it was completely natural. Like the ripples generated from a stone thrown into a pond, this degree of influence would exceed any inventor's expectations.” Completely unexpected at the time, Kilby would be the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics just ten days later. Twenty-five years earlier during my interview with Kilby, I asked him about the possibility of winning the Nobel Prize, but could not get a specific answer. As the IC is just integrated transistors, it wasn’t acknowledged as new or original in the field of physics. This perspective was established in the fields of academics and the industry, and Kilby perhaps thought the same.

Contrary to these thoughts, luck would be by his side and with the discovery of the IC and its unbelievable effect on society, the Nobel Prize Committee perhaps presented Kilby as “the last recipient of the 20th century”.

Upon finding out the news he was chosen for the Nobel Prize, usually quiet and simple Kilby made a short comment saying, “It is a great honor to receive the Nobel Prize, the most prestigious award of all. When I heard I would be receiving it, I was pleasantly surprised and filled with appreciation.”

Come to think of it, Kilby had a habit of saying, “I'm not a scientist, I'm an engineer.” In other words, not a scientist, but an engineer to be given the Nobel Prize in Physics shows that this technological accomplishment caused an impact large enough to affect the scientific world.
On June 6th, 2005, five years after receiving the Nobel Prize, Jack St. Clair Kilby passed away at the age of 81 in Dallas, Texas.

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