APPLIED SCIENCE AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH 207 



fication of the research depends upon the character of the 

 problem and the nature of the agency carrying on the 

 investigation.* 



Fundamental research involves a laboratory very different 

 from the usual plant laboratory. It requires a large, elabo- 

 rately equipped, and heavily staffed laboratory engaged 

 mainly in ^vork that for many years is unremunerative and 

 that, for a considerable time after its foundation, produces 

 no results that can be applied to manufacture. Such a lab- 

 oratory has a cumidative value as its work is continued. At 

 the beginning it is of service to the industry in bringing a 

 new point of view to bear on many of the problems; it is of 

 value especially in establishing standard methods of testing 

 and standard specifications for the purchase of raw materials, 

 while much of its energy may profitably be devoted to the 

 investigation of the use of the products of the industry. 

 Many large industrial laboratories, indeed, are maintained 

 as much in the interests of the customer as for the produc- 

 tion departments. A research laboratory of this type also 

 studies the merits of new industrial propositions of which 

 the value has not been commercially established, but all 

 these early uses of the laboratory eventually prove subsidiary 

 to its main work on fundamental problems. When this main 

 line of research begins to bear fruit, it- absorbs the energies 

 of both the laboratory and the factory. This, however, takes 

 many years. 



As explained previously, research laboratories may be of 

 the divergent or convergent type. Those of the Bell Tele- 

 phone Company, the General Electric Company at Schenec- 

 tady, the W^estinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Com- 

 pany, and the Eastman Kodak Company are essentially of 

 the convergent type. The work of the research laboratory of 



* Charles M. A. Stine, Vice President, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and 

 Company, Wilmington, Del., "Fundamental Research in Industry, Re- 

 search—A National Resource, II. Industrial Research." Report of the 

 National Research Council to the National Resources Planning Board, 

 p. 98, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C, 1941. 



