George E. Smith

George E. Smith, American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2025)

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Born: May 10, 1930
Died: May 28, 2025
Zodiac sign: Taurus
Birth year: 1930

About George E. Smith

George Elwood Smith was an American applied physicist and a co-inventor of the charge-coupled device (CCD). Smith shared one half of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics with Willard Boyle "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor." During his tenure, Smith was awarded dozens of patents and eventually headed the VLSI device department. In 1969, Smith and Willard Boyle invented the charge-coupled device (CCD), for which they have jointly received the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1973, the 1974 IEEE Morris N.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Smith shared one half of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics with Willard Boyle "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor.".

George E. Smith timeline

1969In 1969, Smith and Willard Boyle invented the charge-coupled device (CCD), for which they have jointly received the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1973, the 1974 IEEE Morris N.
2009Smith shared one half of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics with Willard Boyle "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor.".

The world when George E. Smith was born

George E. Smith was born in 1930. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1930

#1 song"Georgia on My Mind" – Hoagy Carmichael
Top movieAll Quiet on the Western Front
Best-selling bookCimarron – Edna Ferber

Headlines and milestones

Major sports momentBobby Jones wins the Grand Slam of golf
Top headlineFirst FIFA World Cup held in Uruguay
Technology milestonePlanet Pluto discovered
Defining fadMiniature golf craze
Notable inventionScotch tape
World population2.07 billion

United States snapshot

U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
Sports championPhiladelphia Athletics (World Series)
U.S. population123.2M

1930 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in George E. Smith's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure	1930	2026
Gas	$0.20	$3.45/gal
Average home	$6,000	$435,000
Average income	$3,500	$67,500
Movie ticket	$0.25	$11.95
Postage stamp	$0.02	$0.73
Population	123.2M	341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.