Final answer:
The statement is false as transistors actually replaced vacuum tubes in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to smaller and more efficient electronic devices, including the advancement of digital computers.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement that transistors were replaced by more efficient vacuum tubes in the early 1950s is false. In fact, the opposite occurred. Transistors, which were invented in 1948 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley of Bell Laboratories, began replacing vacuum tubes in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
These developments in transistor technology made electronics smaller, faster, and more power-efficient, leading to significant advancements in computer technology, such as the creation of the integrated circuit that further miniaturized and increased the performance of electronic devices.
Advanced computing power available today is largely due to the revolutionary changes brought about by these improvements in electronics.
The use of transistors allowed for the creation of portable transistor radios and paved the way for further advancements, such as silicon-based integrated circuits, which greatly reduced the need for complicated wiring and size limitations.
It was these advancements that marked the beginning of the Digital Computer Revolution, enabling digital computers, which were more capable of managing large amounts of data, to gain supremacy over analog computers.