DAEL WOLFLE 



intended to strengthen and broaden the fundamental scientific 

 foundation from which practical applications grow. 



As money and emphasis on research and development 

 have increased, one consequence is that research has taken 

 on some of the aspects of big business. These aspects are tend- 

 ing to overwhelm the scientific curiosity that is fundamental to 

 the whole development of research. Of the $10 billion a year, 

 too small a percentage, less than a tenth, goes for basic research. 



Increased support for research and development has fre- 

 quently clouded the distinctions between basic and applied 

 research, and between these two activities and the engineering 

 developments that grow from them. In the process of rapid 

 expansion of industrial and military technology, the critical 

 importance of gaining fundamental new knowledge from re- 

 search has tended to be obscured by the urgent competition 

 of pressures for the maintenance of national security and the 

 promotion of industrial growth, personal health, and national 

 welfare. It is therefore not surprising that there is confusion 

 over the differences between basic and applied research and 

 uncertainty about the special role and special problems of 

 basic research as a means of gaining fundamental new knowl- 

 edge. 



The purpose of the Symposium on Basic Research was to 

 let the nation know of the special needs of basic research and 

 its relationship to our future national strength and to recom- 

 mend methods by which the nation might make more effective 

 use of its potential resources for basic research. 



The Importance of New Knowledge 



J. Robert Oppenheimer, the first speaker, gave a double 

 justification of the search for fundamental new knowledge: 

 "New knowledge is useful" and "the getting of it is ennobling." 

 There is so much evidence of the usefulness — often the quite 



250 



