W. O. BAKER 



spiritual values on the work of thinkers. Curiously enough, it 

 may be that force to generate this set of values, which we believe 

 so necessary for survival, is coming from the familiar market 

 place practices of supply and demand. This is particularly so in 

 the case of theorists, whose work, we have said, is essential to 

 the proper planning and conduct of broad programs leading 

 to economic welfare and military security. The great rarity of 

 such gifted people, already very clearly evident in our land, is 

 stimulating salaries and other rewards to such levels as will 

 indeed attract more of those genetically qualified to work in 

 basic research. Only about three years ago was the first section 

 of theoretical physics formed in American industry, to practice 

 the way theoretical physics has worked in universities. Only 

 a little before that were there even sections of theoretical physics 

 in such institutions as national laboratories, which already had 

 rather overdefined missions. (Such missions constrain the very 

 function in which we aver theoretical physics especially excels, 

 that is, the function of showing how you cannot do piecemeal, 

 by preordained steps, the fulfillment of important technical 

 programs.) 



Besides the not utterly unique influence of higher 

 salaries, it seems likely that a number of other measures would 

 encourage our nation's best research minds to couple with 

 national social, industrial, and security goals. For instance, there 

 must be increasingly free and increasingly effective publication 

 within programs nominally directed toward immediate practical 

 results. Here, since we are talking about basic research done in 

 such programs, matters of proprietary interest, or security, are 

 really relatively remote. Nevertheless, absence of a conceptual 

 insight into what the particular field really comprises has often 

 prevented publication of large bodies of basic results. This is 

 on the grounds that such publication would give away commer- 

 cial values or military secrets. Improvement of this situation will 



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