Semiconductors - or Christmas discoveries

In 1931 Pauli wrote to Rudolf Peierls:
"Üeber Halbleiter sollte man nicht arbeiten, das ist eine Schweinerei, wer weiss, ob es uberhaupt Halbleiter gibt"
There is no sense to work on the semiconductors, it is known that it is shit, even if they exist.

W. Brittain on 24 December 1947 
wrote how a transistor worked*,

And shortly before Christmas in 1956 team Bardeen, Brattain i Shockley was awarded withNobel Prize.

*discovered totally accidentally - researching current flowing between a golden needle and germanium covered by oxides. Brittain accidentally damaged the oxide layer what caused a rapid growth of the current - what was explained by Bardeen present there during the experiment  as a injection of holes.

- what was no problem to W. Shockley to write on 29 December 1939 in diary some notes about possibility of current amplifcation based on silicon.