SCIENCE AND THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN AMERICA 



tively large amount of engineering research to be carried out by the 

 originators of the idea or those closely associated with them, for only 

 these have the necessary familiarity with the subject and the deep per- 

 sonal interest required for success. 



If, however, some provision is not made for a separate engineering 

 research department there is great danger that the engineering research 

 may grow to such proportions as to undermine the spirit of fundamental 

 research which should dominate the research laboratory if its proper 

 functions are to survive. In the General Electric Company we have been 

 fortunate in having several such engineering departments which are capa- 

 ble of taking over any problem from the research laboratory as soon as 

 its ultimate success seems assured. 



I will give you some examples from my own personal experience to 

 illustrate how fundamental scientific work undertaken without definite 

 applications in view can result in discoveries that are of direct benefit to 

 mankind. I want to show you how, . . . the practical result could hardly 

 have been reached in a laboratory in which the workers were assigned 

 definite work directed towards a goal. There was no one who had the 

 vision to see the goal until we had nearly reached it. 



When I started to work in our research laboratory. Dr. Whitney, 

 who was then director, instead of assigning me to a definite problem, 

 suggested that I spend several days in the various rooms of the laboratory 

 becoming familiar with the work that was being done by the different 

 men. He asked me to let him know what I found of most interest as a 

 problem to work on. 



I was particularly interested in the work that was going on in the 

 laboratory with tungsten-filament lamps of the high-vacuum type. Much 

 work had shown that the higher the vacuum the better was the lamp — 

 that is, the less rapidly the bulb blackened. What interested me most, 

 however, were the wonderful possibilities opened up to the scientist by 

 having a material like tungsten, which could be heated to temperatures 

 over 3400 C. If residual gases produced harmful effects in a lamp, it 

 seemed to me that it was a fascinating field for investigation to study 

 the effects produced bv each different gas separately introduced into the 

 bulb. This work was not undertaken with a definite idea that it would 

 lead to an improvement in the lamp; it was merely done to satisfy my 

 own curiosity as to the interactions between gases at low pressures with 

 filaments at high temperatures, a field of study which, I believe, never 

 had been undertaken before. From Dr. Whitney's point of view it was 

 a useful line of research for the General Electric Company because it 

 would give us increased knowledge of the type of phenomena that are 

 presumably occurring in lamps. The whole consensus of opinion in the 

 laboratory, however, was that the direction that should be followed in 

 seeking to improve the lamp was to obtain a far better vacuum than 

 had previously been possible. 



I worked for about three years studying these chemical reactions 

 at low pressures with filaments at high temperatures, and published sev- 

 eral scientific papers giving the results of this work. I was particularly 

 interested in the results obtained by introducing hydrogen into the lamp, 

 for this gas caused a very great heat loss from the filament. I was able 



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