It is a grim commentary upon the present state of the world that the most important and significant event of 1938 in American industrial research may prove to have been — the European war crisis.
Lesson of Munich.
No more dramatic demonstration could have been afforded of the extent to which a general lack of coordination for the effective use of science, not only in preparation for war but in solving the problems of peace, still characterizes this country's industrial research situation. Certainly no other event of the year so profoundly and immediately affected the course of scientific development, the policies of scientific organizations, and the whole fabric of American technology. Under the immediate influence of the lesson of Munich, more progress was made in the latter months of 1938 toward a real integration of American industrial research than in as many previous years.
Much still remains to be done. The lagging position of the United States is only partially evidenced in the estimates that the U.S.S.R. have 100,000 people working in science and industrial technology; Germany, by even better authenticated figures, 70,000 scientific workers; and the United States, with far greater wealth and industrial resources than either, barely 30,000. The coordination of effort along scientific lines in both Russia and Germany is far more complete and effective than in our own country; and coordination — mobilization — may prove even more decisive than numbers, individual skill, or natural gifts.
Report of National Resources Committee.
However, even before Munich the year did witness two important steps toward the integration of scientific research with the needs of national life. First of these was the publication of the report of the National Resources Committee, entitled 'Technological Trends and National Policy.' A public statement by the President, calling attention to this report, helped to give it national publicity. The report deserves and is still receiving thorough and serious study by legislators, industrial executives, educators, and others to whom the social and economic impact of scientific development is of importance.
Industrial Research Institute.
The second indication of progress was the organization in May of the Industrial Research Institute, a national cooperative association sponsored by the National Research Council. For the first time in America, industrial research executives are provided with a means of attack upon their common problems of administrative efficiency. The Institute may prove to be the instrument of valuable advances not only in direct return on industrial research investment, but in the entire relationship of research, first to industry and then to society at large.
Vital Needs Supplied by Research.
Sprawling and still largely unorganized and unintegrated though American industrial research may be — great as is the confusion, waste, and, doubtless, independent duplication of effort — yet more and more our industrial, financial, and political leaders are recognizing that research is a vital need of our times; first, as a means of safeguarding long-term investment in industry, of increasing the value and decreasing the wastes and dislocations of technological improvement, and of dramatizing the need for the flow of new capital into American industry; second, as a field for skilled and well-paid employment; and last but hardly least, as a guide to sales promotion, advertising, and the protection of the consumer.
Research Laboratories.
Publication of the latest edition of the Bulletin of the National Research Council, listing industrial research laboratories — the only standard reference work in this field — revealed a steady growth; the list comprising upward of 1,760 such laboratories as compared with the 1,562 listed in the previous (1933) edition of this Bulletin 91.
The figures indicate that the growth curve in industrial research is still fairly constant, having varied little in the past ten years. Industrial research is in reality only just emerging as an important factor in our national life. Imposing as a list of 1,760 industrial research laboratories may appear, it becomes less so when it is pointed out that fewer than 1,800 of the 170,000 manufacturing companies in the United States maintain their own research laboratories — though, to be sure, the 1,760 laboratories represent practically all the large national corporations — and that the annual national investment, through these laboratories, in industrial research, though it attains the substantial figure of $300,000,000, is less than the national bill for cosmetics.
Still another evidence of this integration of research with the national life is the growing extent of industrial research in the universities and first-class technical schools; and the spread of plans for forming separate research foundations or corporations, with the licensing of the patented discoveries of the laboratories for the dual purpose of securing the widest possible use of these new and improved methods, processes, or mechanisms, and at the same time obtaining additional funds for the promotion of research in pure science in the universities. There has even been some discussion of the possible desirability of a single national corporation to serve as intermediary between the universities, which may now or later engage in original research, and industry, which presumably will gladly pay adequate royalty for license to use profitable patented discoveries resulting from this research.
Specific Developments and Discoveries.
The year was by no means devoid of specific scientific developments and discoveries of more than passing interest. Foremost of these, perhaps, is nylon, the new textile fiber developed by the DuPont research laboratories. The importance of this development is indicated by the announcement that the DuPont organization proposes to proceed immediately with a $10,000,000 manufacturing plant for the new fiber, which is said to be the closest approximation to the finest natural silk yet attained.
In the same field is a new casein fiber announced by the United States Department of Agriculture. The new process has not yet emerged from the laboratory stage; commercial costs cannot as yet be even guessed at. Casein at present costs from 10 cents to 15 cents a pound as compared with 5 cents a pound for cellulose; but the agents used in treating casein to produce fiber are cheaper than those used in making rayon. There is an annual production of casein in this country on the order of one billion pounds; but many doubtful points still remain to be cleared up before this product of Government science can be accepted as a commercial success.
The significance of these two advances in one of the most laggard, scientifically speaking, of American industrial fields may be considerable. The tradition-bound textile industry stands close to the bottom in research effort; its annual expenditure for that purpose is but 0.7 per cent of invested capital, whereas the average for all American industry is 1.5 per cent, the chemical industry leading with 2.6 per cent. Here, seemingly, the leader — chemistry — is offering a helping hand to one of the least progressive of its fellow industries. (See also CHEMISTRY.)
Though 1938 saw no particularly striking new developments in the fast-growing field of plastics, the application of these new substances to ever wider fields of usefulness, with many accompanying refinements and improvements, continues at an accelerating pace. Some remarkably effective work was done during the year in the equally new field of air conditioning and the older field of scientific lighting now called light conditioning.
The partnership of industry and agriculture made further strides in the direction of new markets for farm products, and better utilization of agricultural wastes or by-products. Conspicuous in this field was the work of the Chemical Foundation's Farm Chemurgic Council in developing alcohol from cornstalks for use, blended with gasoline, as a motor fuel.
In the field of pure science, the entry of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company into fundamental atomic research, where the General Electric Company, and Bell Telephone Laboratories, with Nobel Prize winners (Irving Langmuir, 1932, and Clinton J. Davisson, 1937) on their staffs, were already rivaling or even excelling the achievements of university laboratories, is not the least interesting or significant development of an eventful year.
No comments:
Post a Comment