II, — ^THE RISE OF SCIENCE IN INDUSTRY 



chemical pioneer Lavoisier, the great English scientists Faraday and 

 Maxwell, are names selected at random of those who laid the founda- 

 tions for present science. Engineers and inventors, men like Edison, Elihu 

 Thomson, Marconi and Bessemer, have applied science to meet human 

 need, but not manv of them made great contributions to science itself. 

 Pasteur is perhaps the most important exception. He was one of the 

 greatest of scientists, and at the same time he made applications of sci- 

 ence having the utmost direct value to mankind. 



Beginning about 1900, many industries established research labora- 

 tories whose object was primarily to apply existing scientific knowledge 

 to the solution of industrial problems. Only a small fraction of this total 

 knowledge had received industrial application, and it must have seemed 

 to the leaders of industry as though the supply of available unused 

 knowledge was almost inexhaustible. The industries felt no need or 

 obligation either to contribute to or to extend the fundamental knowl- 

 edge; it was only necessary to develop the applications to their partic- 

 ular needs. The age, after all, was one of unscrupulous exploitation of 

 natural resources. . . . 



In the year 1900, Mr. E. W. Rice, Jr., established within the General 

 Electric Company at Schenectady an organized industrial research labo- 

 ratory for the purpose of carrying on fundamental industrial research. 

 It was planned that this laboratory should be devoted exclusively to 

 original research or to the study of natural phenomena in search for 

 new facts and principles. Mr. Rice was thus not content to draw from 

 the storehouse of scientific knowledge built up in universities but wished 

 to have a laboratory in which scientific progress could be accelerated 

 and the frontiers of knowledge extended in directions which would be 

 likely to prove useful to the industry. Such research can not usually be 

 directed toward definite goals, for it involves unknown factors. Success 

 in such research, if attained, is often reached by wholly unexpected 

 methods, and the problem which is finally solved is not the problem 

 which is foreseen. 



As this laboratory developed it was soon recognized that it was not 

 practicable nor desirable that such a laboratory should be engaged 

 wholly in fundamental scientific research. It was found that at least 75 

 per cent, of the laboratory must be devoted to the development of the 

 practical applications. It is stimulating to the men engaged in fundamental 

 science to be in contact with those primarily interested in the practical 

 applications. It is also important that the engineers in the organization 

 should be in close contact with those having the broader scientific 

 outlook. 



Let me give an example of the useful interaction of the two groups 

 of men. Let us suppose that through the discovery of a new scientific 

 principle or fact the possibility of some new application is opened up. 

 The men trained in pure science are usually not the men to make most 

 rapid progress in the applications; on the other hand, it is not possible 

 to turn the work over immediately to a separate engineering research 

 laboratory. The growing idea, like a child, must not be weaned from its 

 mother too soon. Before the continued development of the idea can be 

 assured in the hands of an engineering staff, it is necessary for a rela- 



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