420 
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN RELATION TO 
INDUSTRIES.+ 
NDUSTRY, and with it all our modern civilisation, 
depend on engineering. Engineering, however, 
is nothing but applied science, and science thus is the 
foundation, and scientific research the ultimate means, 
which have created our civilisation. Through ages the 
chief homes of scientific research have been the univer- 
sities and other educational institutions. During the 
last generation, however, the industrial development 
has been so rapid, and the demand for the results of 
scientific research so great and urgent, that the univer- 
sities have not been able to supply it, and the indus- 
tries, especially the more powerfully organised modern 
industries, as electrical engineering, chemistry, etc., 
had to enter the field of scientific research. The 
country’s educational institutions did not advance in 
fostering scientific research to the same degree as the 
industries advanced, and many universities and educa- 
tional institutions rather retrograded in: scientific re- 
search, became submerged in a false commercialism 
which figured the output of the college in student 
hours per professor, judged efficiency by the percentage 
of students graduated, and altogether too often wasted 
the university's best assets—its professors. Thus we 
find in our colleges men who had shown themselves 
capable as investigators to do scientific research work 
of the highest order overloaded with educational or 
administrative routine, and deprived of the time for 
research work. Private industries rarely commit such 
crimes of wasting men on work inferior to that which 
they can do; industrial efficiency forbids it. 
Thus, when with the advance of industry a more 
rapid extension of our scientific knowledge was de- 
manded than was given by the educational’ research in- 
stitutions, scientific research laboratories were estab- 
lished in the industries. Some of them very soon 
showed their ability to produce scientific work of high 
character. As illustration, I may mention how an 
entirely new branch of chemistry, the chemistry of the 
free atom, has resulted from the work of Langmuir in 
the electrochemical research laboratory of the General 
Electric Company, and has been communicated to the 
literature of the subject by numerous papers. 
Theoretically, there is a limitation imposed on scien- 
tific research work in industrial establishments. It 
should be of sucha character that it may lead to results 
which are industrially useful. In reality, however, 
this is no limitation at all, but there is no scientific 
investigation, however remote from industrial require- 
ments, which might not possibly lead to industrially 
useful developments, and obviously no immediate or 
direct usefulness is expected; any investigation offer- 
ing a definite prospect of industrial utility is not scien- 
tific research, but is industrial development or design. 
Experience, indeed, has shown that it is rare that sooner 
or later some industrially valuable results do not 
follow, no matter how abstruse and remote from ap- 
parent utility a scientific investigation may appear, and 
any scientific research whatsoever is thus industrially 
justified. ‘ 
To illustrate, when, by the consulting engineering 
laboratory of the General Electric Company, research 
work was. undertaken on the electrostatic corona, and 
in general on the dielectric phenomena in the air, no 
immediate or direct benefit could be seen for the 
industrial company which financed the work, but it 
was justified by the consideration that a greater know- 
ledge of these phenomena may extend the economic 
limits of long-distance power transmission, and thereby 
1 Presented at a joint meeting of the Franklini Institute and the Phil- 
adelphia Section, American Instit 
1916, by Dr. C. P. Steinmetz, Ch 
Company, Schenectady, N.Y. 
Institute, vol. clxxxii., No. 6. 
NO. 2465, VoL. 98] 
ute of Electrical Engineers, on October 18, 
ief Consulting Engineer, General Electric 
Abridged from the Journal of the Franklin 
NATURE 
- conditions are selected. As these conditions naturally — 
[JANUARY 25, 1917 
increase the industrial demand for transmission appa- 
ratus. Nevertheless, before the research was com 
pleted—if research can ever be considered completed—_ 
it had led to a re-design of practically all high-voltage 
transmission apparatus, and ithus proved essentially — 
valuable in industrial design. © : 
Some research work can be carried out more 
efficiently by educational institutions, others by the 
industry. In general, for industrial research, better 
facilities in materials and in power are available, but — 
high-class skilled labour, of investigators and research — 
men, such as is available in university research by the 
graduate students, is expensive in the industry. Thus 
researches requiring little in facilities, but a targe 
amount of the time and attention of research men, are” 
especially adapted to educational laboratories, while 
investigations requiring large amounts of material or — 
of power rather than the time of the investigators are — 
specifically adapted to the industry, and often beyond 
the facilities of the educational institution. Efficiency — 
thus should require a division of research between — 
educational and industrial laboratories in accordance — 
with their facilities, and where this is done the — 
results are splendid. Thus, for instance, the pheno- — 
mena of the dielectric field beyond the elastic limit—_ 
or, in other words, those of the disruptive effects in — 
air and other dielectrics under high electric stress— 
were almost entirely unknown a very few years ago, 
and it was even unknown whether there is a definite 
dielectric strength of materials, analogous to the 
mechanical strength. This. field has been very com-— 
pletely cleared up, and a comprehensive knowledge — 
of the phenomena of the dielectric field gained, not — 
only under steady stress, but also under oscillatin: 
stress, and under the transient stress of sudden electric 
blows or impulses, ranging down to the time measured 
by micro-seconds, as the result largely of the work of 
an industrial research laboratory—the consulting — 
engineering laboratory of the General Electric Com-_ 
pany under Mr. F. W. Peek—and an educational — 
laboratory—Johns Hopkins University under Prof. 
Whitehead—both laboratories working independently 
and devoting their attention to those subjects for 
which they are specifically fitted, though naturally 
often overlapping and checking each other. ie 
Unfortunately, this limitation of research work in — 
accordance with the available facilities is not always 
realised, and especially educational institutions not in- 
frequently attempt research work for which industrial — 
laboratories are far better fitted, while research work — 
for which the educational institution is well fitted, — 
which the industry needs but cannot economically 
undertake, is left undone. It is usually the desire to — 
“do something of industrial value” which leads uni- 
versities to undertake investigations on railroading and — 
similar subjects, in which the probability of adding 
something material to our knowledge is extremely 
remote, or to undertake investigations on industrial 
iron alloys in competition with the vastly greater and — 
more efficient research of industrial laboratories in this 
field of magnetism, while all other magnetic research 
is largely neglected. Our knowledge of the phenomena 
of magnetism is therefore still very unsatisfactory, — 
and it is obvious that a material advance can be ex- 
pected only from a comprehensive study of the entire — 
field of magnetism, and the little investigated non- — 
ferrous magnetic materials thus would be the ones 
most requiring study. ; y 
The closer relation of industrial research labora- 
tories to engineering practice leads to a tendency 
which, in general, may be expressed by saying that in 
the results of industrial research the probable error is 
greater, but the possibility of a constant error less, than — 
in educational research. In any investigation typical — 
