Atoms and Beer

As the story goes, there once was an engineer who claimed to have the best job in the world. When asked why it was so great, he replied “My work is so far-out that even my boss doesn’t understand it. When I tell him what an awesome job I am doing, he has no choice but to take my word for it.” Some of us still think of this as a dream job, while others are driven by doing something a bit more practical.

If you are like me, you are old enough to remember research labs like IBM Almaden, Xerox PARC, and Bell Labs. The first two still exist (i.e., they have websites) having made the trendy switch from “research lab” to “innovation center.” Not content to just tell the boss how great they were doing, IBM (1989) spelled out the company name in Xenon atoms arranged on a chilled nickel crystal. Google “Bell Labs” and you may land on “World Leader in Rodent Control Technology” which, while innovative in its own way, is not exactly what Alexander Graham Bell originally had in mind.

All of the above-mentioned research establishments have one thing in common — they have a broad goal (improved computing, better vaccines, space exploration….) and little is done under the heading of “let’s try this just because we can.” These are all examples of what I call “r&D”- a little bit of research with an eye on Development. <continue reading>