SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION LECTURE 15 RADICAL TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN INDUSTRY

1. SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION LECTURE 15 RADICAL TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN INDUSTRY ILLUSTRATION: DUPONT’S INVENTION OF NYLON FREDERICK BETZ PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

2. INFORMATION MODEL OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD UNIVERSITY S1 T1 NATURAL THING SCIENTIST OBSERVATION SCIENCE DEPARTMENTS DISCIPLINE THEORY T2 S2 NATURAL THING SCEINTIST PREDICTION • SCIENCE INVENTS INSTRUMENTS FOR OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENTS. • INSTRUMENTATION EXTENDS SENSORY FOCUS AND SENSITIVITY. • EXPERIMENT IS THE ABSTRACTION OF NATURE THROUGH CONTROLLED EXPLORATION OF NATURE USING INSTRUMENTS. • THEORY IS THE GENERALIZATION AND RELATION OF THE ABSTRACTIONS OF NATURE DETERMINED BY EXPERIMENTS. • THEORY IS TESTED BY PREDICTION OF THE RESULTS OF FURTHER EXPERIMENTATION.

3. INTERACTIONS OF SCIENCE & ENGINEERING & BUSINESS UNIVERSITY S1 T1 NATURAL THING SCIENTIST OBSERVATION SCIENCE DEPARTMENTS DISCIPLINE THEORY T2 S2 NATURAL THING SCEINTIST PREDICTION PROFESSION SYSTEM ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT DESIGN P1 E1 PRODUCT ENGINEER BUSINESS FIRM ENTERPRISE SALES REVENUE M1 B1 BUSINESS PERSON MARKET

4. ILLUSTRATION: DU PONT’S INNOVATION OF NYLON David A. Hounshell and John Kenly Smith, Jr. described the invention of the material ‘nylon’ by Du Pont in the decade of the 1930s and its innovation in the product of ladies stockings: “On October 27,1938, Charles Stine, a vice-president of E. I. du Pont de Nemours, Inc., announced that nylon had been invented. He unveiled the world's first synthetic fiber not to a scientific society but to three thousand women's club members gathered at the site of the 1939 New York World's Fair for the New York Herald Tribune's Eighth Annual Forum on Current Problems. “ “Stine proclaimed: "To this audience ... I am making the first announcement of a brand new chemical textile fiber. This textile fiber is the first man-made organic textile fiber prepared wholly from new materials from the mineral kingdom. I refer to the fiber produced from nylon. Though wholly fabricated from such common raw materials as coal, water, and air, nylon can be fashioned into filaments as strong as steel, as fine as a spider's web, yet more elastic than any of the common natural fibers." Thinking that "strong as steel" meant indestructible stockings, the women at the forum burst into applause.

5. Twelve years earlier Stine was the director of Du Pont's Chemical {i.e., central research] Department. On December 18,1926 Sine proposed to the company's executive committee to build a new targeted basic research laboratory for Du Pont. Stine wanted to undertake research with "the object of establishing or discovering new scientific facts," as contrasted with Du Pont's current research, which "applied previously established scientific facts to practical problems." Stine pointed out that "fundamental or pioneer research work by industrial laboratories was not an untried experiment" but rather had been successful in the German chemical industry and in the General Electric Company. Stine recognized that universities did a considerable amount of fundamental research but noted that there were some important gaps in their programs. He said: “Du Pont’s applied research is facing a shortage of its principal raw materials."

6. He listed four reasons why Du Pont should spend its money on this new kind of industrial chemical research. First was the scientific prestige or "advertising value" to be gained through the presentation and publishing of papers. Second, interesting scientific research would improve morale and make the recruiting of Ph.D. chemists easier. Third, the results of Du Pont's pure-science work could be used to barter for information about research in other institutions. Fourth, pure science might give rise to practical applications. Stine personally believed that practical applications would inevitably result. He felt that his proposal was totally justified by the first three reasons. He foresaw that investigation of the scientific foundations of chemical technology had to yield significant results in the long run. Science would improve on traditional knowledge.

7. TYPES OF RESEARCH INQUIRIES PROFESSION INNOVATION SCIENCETECHNOLOGY Discovery Bottleneck TheoryInvention ENGINEERINGCOMMERCIALIZATION Systems Standards Design Processes NATURE MARKET Scientific discovery of nature and development of theory often provides the basis for inventions of new technology to experiment with nature, enabling nature’s manipulation.

8. Stine got even more than he asked for. Beginning in April 1927, fundamental research was to receive $25,000 a month, much more than Stine could possibly spend for several years. As part of his 1927 budget, Stine received $115,000 to build a new laboratory for fundamental research, which Du Pont chemists quickly dubbed "Purity Hall." With the new building under construction, Stine began to look for twenty-five scientists to fill it. From the outset Stine believed that his program would succeed only if he could hire "men of proven ability and recognized standing in their respective fields." But he realized that it would be difficult and maybe impossible to recruit such men, all of whom worked in academia and had developed specific lines of research. Alternatively he proposed to do what General Electric and Bell Labs had done successfully: hire "men of exceptional scientific promise but [with] no established reputation. In this case the nature of their work can largely be determined by us.“

9. LESSONS FOR SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION Industrial Research Laboratories normally hire the new Ph.D. to facilitate the focus of the new scientists’ research on targeted basic research relevant to the industrial sectors of the company.

10. By the end of 1927 he had eight men at work on several lines of fundamental research. He had hoped to have fifteen men working on organic chemistry alone and to spend nearly half his budget on it. But by the beginning of 1928 he had succeeded in hiring only one man, a thirty-one-year-old instructor from Harvard University named Wallace Hume Carothers. During his nine years at Du Pont, the brilliant but mercurial Carothers both made important contributions to polymer science and led the research effort that produced neoprene synthetic rubber and nylon.

11. Carothers had become interested in chemistry as a high school student in Des Moines. In the fall of 1915 he entered Tarkio College in Missouri as a science major and simultaneously accepted a position in the Commercial Department of the college. Later he assisted in the English Department. Carothers prided himself on his ability to write clear and forceful prose, a skill evident in his scientific papers. When his chemistry professor, Arthur M.Fardee, left Tarkio for the University of South Dakota, Carothers filled in as the chemistry instructor, though he was still an undergraduate. After graduating in 1920, he obtained a master's degree in organic chemistry at the University of Illinois. Then, joining Fardee in South Dakota, Carothers taught courses in analytical and physical chemistry to save enough money to return to Illinois for a Ph.D.

12. Back in Illinois in 1922, he soon became bored by the drudgery of graduate school. He wrote to a friend that "it contains all the elements of adventure and enterprise which a nut screwer in a Ford factory must feel on setting out for work in the morning." Only his research, which was driven by "the insatiable curiosity of the true scientific spirit," kept him jumping the hurdles toward his Ph.D. For the 1923-24 year, the college awarded him the Chemistry Department's most prestigious fellowship, the extra income from which Carothers used to support his passions for billiards and coffee. He completed his doctorate in 1924 and remained at Illinois as an instructor for two years until he was hired by Harvard University. Although Carothers believed Harvard was the "academic paradise" for teaching, he really did not like to teach. Soon Du Pont offered him a job that ostensibly entailed nothing but research.

13. LESSONS FOR SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION The university’s principal function is education, teaching. Research is a secondary function and not performed by all universities, nor by all faculty. Research is a university ‘add-on’ and thereby requires special attention, funding, and organization for universities to have a first-class research capability. Government support of scientific research at universities is therefore a vital ingredient to the research capability of any university.

14. Carothers resisted Stine's recruitment efforts until he was absolutely sure that fundamental research meant pure science. Carothers asked if he could continue his work on the thermal decomposition of ethyl-metal compounds. Stine replied that at Du Pont Carothers could work on whatever he pleased, but the growth of his group would depend on his "capacity for initiating and directing work that we consider worthwhile undertaking." What Stine wanted him to do was research in the emerging field of polymer science. Stine dispatched one of his assistants, Hamilton Bradshaw, to Cambridge to see Carothers. In the intellectual Bradshaw, Carothers found a kindred spirit. They must have talked about the challenges offered by polymer research and the kind of support that Du Pont promised. Also Bradshaw raised Du Pont's salary offer, of five thousand dollars versus thirty-two hundred at Harvard, by 20 percent. Ten days later Carothers decided to join the Du Pont Company.

15. LESSONS FOR SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION The ‘targeting’ of basic research is directing the science toward the science base of a relevant technology – core technology of a firm.

16. Writing to Bradshaw shortly after accepting the position, Carothers set down his ideas about polymerization. His discussion contains the basis of the classic research that he did at Du Pont. At the time, German chemists were debating whether polymeric substances were held together by the same forces that operate in smaller molecules or whether some other kind of force peculiar to these substances was involved. Hermann Staudinger began to publish articles asserting that polymeric molecules were practically endless chains held together by ordinary chemical bonds. Carothers espoused this point of view and devised a scheme to prove it. He wrote Bradshaw: "I have been hoping that it might be possible to tackle this problem from the synthetic side. The idea would be to build up some very large molecules by simple and definite reactions in such a way that there could be no doubt about their structures."

17. LESSONS FOR SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION SCIENTIFIC SCIENTIFIC METHOD REPRESENTATION (EPISTEMOLOGY) (ONTOLOGY) SCIENCE SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION APPLICATION (ORGANIZATION) (TECHNOLOGY) Scientific research proposals require a ‘research vision’. Research vision is a scientific method (epistemological) approach to answer an inquiry (fundamental question) of the current scientific representation (ontology). The formal research proposal is a technique for science administration (organization) to allocate research funds to promising lines of scientific inquiry.

18. LESSONS FOR SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION Scientific discovery of nature and development of theory often provides the basis for inventions of new technology to experiment with nature, enabling nature’s manipulation. Industrial Research Laboratories normally hire the new Ph.D. to facilitate the focus of the new scientists’ research on targeted basic research relevant to the industrial sectors of the company. The university’s principal function is education, teaching. Research is a secondary function and not performed by all universities, nor by all faculty. Research is a university ‘add-on’ and thereby requires special attention, funding, and organization for universities to have a first-class research capability. Government support of scientific research at universities is therefore a vital ingredient to the research capability of any university. The ‘targeting’ of basic research is directing the science toward the science base of a relevant technology – core technology of a firm. Scientific research proposals require a ‘research vision’. Research vision is a scientific method (epistemological) approach to answer an inquiry (fundamental question) of the current scientific representation (ontology). The formal research proposal is a technique for science administration (organization) to allocate research funds to promising lines of scientific inquiry.