MERLE A. TUVE 



basic research, even during its drudgery stages, and that the 

 term "technological research" be used to refer to the very much 

 larger body of activity, often involving a great many individuals 

 not qualified as independent investigators, which underlies, in 

 its matter of fact way, the work of various practical groups in 

 industry and government. Basic research, which is so-called mis- 

 sion-directed, is then primarily technological research, although 

 an occasional activity which really does qualify under the notion 

 of the "support of ideas" will be mission-connected and might 

 even be included in the budgets for what I would call technolog- 

 ical research. But this we all know is a very small fraction. 



The reason for making this perhaps uncomfortable dis- 

 tinction is not in order to attack technological research as such, 

 except on perhaps one point, namely, that it deflects, distracts, 

 and subtracts some highly creative and effective individuals 

 from the research area we clearly recognize as the support of 

 ideas, into this rather special operating area of technology. The 

 reason for making the distinction is simply to remind you of a 

 genetic relationship, namely, that all the huge activities of 

 technological research grow out of the highly personal activities 

 of academic research. No array of feedback arguments will 

 convince very many of us that the real germ of new knowledge 

 is the product of team activity or the result of large-scale instru- 

 ments or implements created in the simple hope of learning 

 something new. The idea and the research objective must come 

 first and then the instrument created for approaching this ob- 

 jective and testing the idea. Occasionally, but often in an 

 equivocal sense, this notion that teams and big instruments 

 create new areas of knowledge appears partly true or at least 

 plausible. But I have observed that the new scientific knowledge 

 gained by just operating a huge expedition or big-scale instru- 

 mentation often must be inflated by repeated public statements 

 until it appears to have great scientific importance. When asked 



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