Indusfnal Research 



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mcasuri'ments available in every other field of science 

 or engineering. Out of the early work grew the manu- 

 facture in the hands of von Siemens, Carpentier, Wes- 

 ton, and others, of accurate electrical measuring instru- 

 ments for general use; and now the mission of filling 

 the market demand for electrical measuring instrmnents, 

 of both refined and commercial precision, has become 

 an important industry of itself. 



To produce these results, close association has been 

 necessary among electrical engineers, physicists, metal- 

 lurgists, physical chemists, and other specialists, in a 

 manner readily secured in a well-balanced industrial 

 research organization. Advances in all fields of science 

 and engineering require new instruments of types and 

 precisions adapted to the needs of advancing frontiers. 

 The industrial research of electrical instrument makers 

 has broadly fruited in showing the way for producing 

 new types of instrxmients, and in improving the pre- 

 cision while reducing the cost of older types. 



Progress has depended upon finding or producing 

 new materials for this use and also upon learning how 

 to use existing materials better. Examples of these 

 paths of progress are to be observed in new alloys, 

 such as alloy metals of special electrical qualities or of 

 very high magnetic permeability and low coercive force 

 and others of very high coercive force; in new insulating 

 materials (dielectrics) ; in modifications in the forms of 

 parts and modifications of materials themselves intro- 

 duced to improve instrumental torque; in the manu- 

 facture of permanent parts by molding or die-casting 

 so as to reduce costs and improve reliability; and in 

 many other details. 



Recently, entirely new fields of measurement and of 

 equipment control have been opened up by the intro- 

 duction of electronic devices, which have brought into 

 the zone of practicability types of measurements 

 previously unattainable, and likewise have made con- 

 trol methods more economical and convenient for 

 various electrical devices. The photoelectric effect has 

 been discovered and brought into a multitude of uses 

 in measuring and controlling devices. These improve- 

 ments have also facilitated telemetering and accom- 

 panying processes of remote control in a variety of 

 situations. 



The recent rapid march toward use of ultrahigh- 

 frcquency ciUTents in the radio and associated fields 

 has imposed on the laboratories a big responsibility 

 which they have met admirably by developing new 

 or modified methods of measurements adapted to the 

 cuTumstances. These make possible measurements of 

 satisfactory precision in parts of the electric-wave 

 spectrum previously untouched. The use of piezo- 

 electric crystals as standards of frequency and time, 

 and the development of a whole family of equipment 

 for precise frequency and time measurements, have 



come out of the industrial lal)oratories in quite recent 

 years, and have supported the practicability of notable 

 advances in the commmiications art, such as narrow- 

 frequency control for radio frequency bands, picture 

 transmission, and the rudiments of television. 



Electrical Communications 



Our greatest systems of electrical communications 

 are legitimate children of the industrial research labora- 

 tory. Alexander Graham Bell, aided by Thomas A. 

 Watson, was at work developing harmonic (multiple) 

 telegraphic apparatus when he discovered the principle 

 of telephony and produced the first transmitters and 

 receivers. Other able men came into the field to make 

 discoveries and inventions, and organized research 

 became more and more productive, until research 

 laboratories supported in the electrical-communications 

 field became established in many parts of the world. 

 The laboratory of the American Telephone and Tele- 

 graph Company (the Bell Telephone Laboratories) is 

 the most extensive and important of them, but there 

 are several other very notable American laboratories 

 in this field. 



Ocean telegraphy through submarine cables was 

 made a success and improved similarly. The genius 



Figure 96. — Vacuum Electric Furnace for Production of 

 Single Cr.vstals of Gold and Copper. Westinghouse Electric 

 and Manufacturing Company, East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 



