Industrial Research 



53 



company or delay in satisfactorily meeting a customer's 

 needs." Nevertheless, one of the outstanding character- 

 istics of the laboratory has been the director's constant 

 effort to keep in progress as much fundamental research 

 as possible. The fact that the laboratory has been free 

 from all direct responsibility for engineering and manu- 

 facturing operations has made it less difficult to main- 

 tain fundamental research than it otherwise would 

 have been. The presence of Dr. Ii-ving Langmuir has 

 also helped to keep fundamental research from being 

 crowded out. Dr. Whitney, writing of Langmuir, 

 said: 



Some promising research men are so tempted by urgent calls 

 of manufacturing difficulties tliat they metaphorically divest 

 themselves of their protecting clothing and quickly plunge 

 into depths of factory troubles unfathonied by all previous 

 e.xperts. Not so Langmuir! He was destined to be a good 

 helper (or life preserver), but a still better pioneer. His methods 

 develop principles of new utilities instead of putting patches on 

 the old.'"* 



That scientists inevitably are led at times from re- 

 search to its application because they alone have the 

 knowledge necessary for design and development is 

 shown by the following instance related by Mr. Larry 

 A. Hawkins, e.xecutive engineer of the laborator3^ 



When Langmuir had discovered the pure electron discharge 

 from a hot cathode in high vacuum, Coolidge perceived and 

 demonstrated the possibility of utilizing such a discharge in a 

 new type of X-ray tube. He could not stop there if the new 

 tube were to be made available to the medical profession. No 

 other department of the company had the knowledge and 

 facilities necessary for its design and development. Coolidge 

 became for the time a designing engineer. Even when he had 

 produced a tube satisfactory for the doctor's use, he had not 

 completed the necessary task. No factory department was in 

 a position to undertake its manufacture. Coolidge therefore 

 had next to become a production manager, devising and building 

 equipment, establishing details of material specifications, fabri- 

 cation of parts, assembly, exhaust, and testing, and supervising 

 the smaU scale manufacture, until others had acquired the neces- 

 sary training to enable them to carry on.'" 



When Dr. "WTiitney decided that the activities at the 

 General Electric laboratory were sufficient in number 

 to require his full-time attention, he had about a dozen 

 helpers. Since that time the increase in the nunaber of 

 employees has in general followed the increase in the 

 company's business. Moreover, as the activities and ac- 

 comphshments of the laboratory became more numerous, 

 its prestige increased, and it was accorded greater 

 independence. In 1903 a Research Laboratory Ad- 

 visory Council had been formed, with Mr. Rice as chair- 

 man. For 12 years it held meetings two or three times 

 a year in order to guide the development of the labora- 

 tory in a way that would be of greatest benefit to the 



I" Whitney, Willis R. Irving Langmuir, scientist. Ciirrenl Hiatory, S7, 705 

 (March 1933). 



••• For this quotation and much of the factual material concerning the General 

 Electric Co., the author is Indebted to its executive engineer, Dr. Larry A. Hawkins. 



company. Although Dr. Whitney, as director, had 

 long enjoyed an entirely free rein, he continued to re- 

 port the activities of the laboratory to the vice presi- 

 dent in charge of engineering until 1928, when he was 

 himself made vice president in charge of research. With 

 this move the research laboratoiy took its place in the 

 organization chart on a level with the major activities 

 of the company. 



Occasionally the laboratory staff has been decreased 

 because of prolonged business depressions; but much 

 more frequently by the transfer of a group of laboratory 

 men to another department because of the develop- 

 ment in the laboratory of a new product, so different 

 from the company's prior comanercial products that no 

 existing department was competent to complete its 

 development and carry on the initial manufacture. 

 Such products as the new type of carbon brush for rail- 

 way motors and other apparatus, ductUe tungsten and 

 the process of making it, the Coolidge X-ray tube, and 

 the radio power tube have resulted in the organization 

 of new departments manned by the men from the labora- 

 tory who had been in charge of the development and 

 initial production. 



With the exception of 2 or 3 years during the recent 

 depression, the company has for 15 years followed the 

 practice of inviting a carefully selected list of post- 

 graduate students to work in the laboratory during the 

 vacation period. As a result, the company, when in 

 need of additional men, has been able to select those 

 who have shown clearly that they possess the qualities 

 necessary for a successful career in research. 



The research laboratory cooperates closely with nu- 

 merous other laboratories maintained by the company. 



There is the General Engineering Laboratorv, specializing on 

 the standardization of instruments and testing methods, the 

 development of new instruments and new testing procedure, and 

 the conducting of special engineering tests. There is the Thom- 

 son Research Laboratory at Lynn, from which have come fused 

 quartz, the supercharger for aeroplanes, and a number of other 

 developments. Each of the larger works has its own works 

 laboratory, responsible for supplying the technical assistance and 

 supervision required in factory processes, making physical and 

 chemical tests on materials and product, conducting the neces- 

 sary experiments for solving the day-to-day problems arising 

 from factory operations or engineering requirements, and devel- 

 oping new factory equipment and processes. There is a large 

 laboratory for lamp development, a metallurgical laboratory 

 specializing on tungston, molybdenum and their alloys, a lighting 

 research laboratory, an illuminating engineering laboratory, and 

 a high-voltage laboratory for studying lightning and other high 

 voltage phenomena."' 



If all of the laboratory work of the company were 

 consolidated in the research laboratory, its staff woidd 

 need to be increased manyfold, and the portion of its 

 activities devoted to fundamental research would be a 

 minute fraction of the whole and in constant danger of 



'•^ Hawkins, L. A. Manuscript. 



