Early in 1954, the Laboratories announced a device that realizes one of the ancient dreams of mankind—the Bell Solar Battery, which converts the sun’s light directly into useful amounts of electricity. Research that led to the transistor led also to the battery—and to a tiny and durable switch that one day may handle the automatic switching of your telephone calls, and other things not yet imagined. The Laboratories and national defense The Laboratories makes its services available to the armed forces for work to which it is uniquely suited. It specializes in military communications and those instruments of war that depend heavily on communications and electronics. In carrying out its military responsibilities, the Laboratories follows the same time-tested pattern that guides its Bell System activities. Its military work grows out of _research_, _fundamental development_, _systems engineering_, and finally specific _development_ and _design_. [Illustration: _Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jersey_] Reliability and trouble-free operation throughout long life are objectives of the Laboratories in designing new equipment and products for the Bell System. The same objectives are also very important in designing military equipment. Because of this similarity in the two fields, scientists and engineers in the Laboratories often divide their working days between Bell System and military problems. Personnel moves frequently between the two fields of endeavor. Thus the Laboratories’ long experience in the peacetime science of telephony helps strengthen the nation’s defense—and discoveries that grow out of military preparedness help strengthen and improve the nations telephone system. [Illustration: _“Nike,” one of the new weapons in America’s defense arsenal. This guided missile is directed in flight by electronic controls designed by Bell Laboratories and made by the Western Electric Company._] [Illustration: _Scientists responsible for the invention of the Bell Solar Battery examine its characteristics at Bell Laboratories._] Service of Manufacture and Supply The manufacture of reliable, standardized telephone apparatus is a major responsibility of another Bell System unit, the Western Electric Company. It supplies to the operating companies telephone equipment of high quality at reasonable prices. Western Electric also buys for the operating telephone companies supplies that it does not itself produce. Since large quantities are required, this arrangement results in important economies. Western Electric speeds delivery to the telephone companies of the right equipment and materials, and the right time, from stocks maintained in distributing houses from coast to coast. Also, specially trained western Electric forces install for the Bell companies most of the complicated central office equipment required to connect all parts of the telephone system.