RESEARCH, INDUSTRIAL. Industrial research aims at applying to industry the truths wrested from nature by workers in science. In 1893 Sir W. Anderson wrote "The days are past when an engineer can acquit himself respectably by the aid of mother wit alone or of those constructive instincts which in the past led our predecessors to such brilliant results." Each year makes the truth of his words more manifest ; industrial research is one important stone in the foundation of our modern civilization.
But appreciation of this truth has been slow of growth, at any rate in England. In Germany during the later years of the 19th century the Reichsanstalt and the Materials Prilfungs Amt were founded, and their work, along with investigations at technical in stitutes, had no small effect on German industry. The beginning of the 20th century saw the establishment of the National Physical Laboratory in Great Britain, followed almost immediately by that of the Bureau of Standards at Washington, while in Paris there was the Laboratoire Central d'Electricite and much renewed activity at the Laboratoire d'Essais in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. But it needed the shock given by the World War be fore the truth of Sir W. Anderson's words was fully grasped.
Industrial research does not necessarily differ from so-called pure research in its methods ; it is the object with which the inves tigation is made that constitutes the difference ; and of course much work is necessary before the laboratory discovery, or the brilliant intuition of the inventor, verified by striking experiments, can be translated into the practice.
countries are investigating the properties of matter by X-ray analysis, determining the forms of lattice in which the atoms which constitute the substance are arranged and endeavouring to draw conclusions applicable to all matter; this is a great work of pure research. The metallurgist employed in some works or indus trial research laboratory seeks to use the results of the physicist and the methods which have been devised to enable him to learn, for example, why steel is hardened by quenching, what is the cause of the deleterious effect of phosphorus on copper, or why cast metal which is brittle can be made soft and ductile by heat treat ment and mechanical work. This is industrial research. Such a worker must carry his investigations further in order that they may be of use to industry. In his laboratory some method devised for making and treating a new and valuable alloy works perfectly or some instrument designed to register the course of a factory process appears foolproof and without a fault ; in the factory the alloy cannot be worked or the instrument fails under the first real test ; it is his business to find out why ; to make the advances of science—advances due in part to his own researches—available for industrial purposes.
Here a distinction should be drawn between the research lab oratory of a works and the works laboratory; where both exist there may well be close co-operation, and possibly joint control, but the spheres are distinct. In any modern factory a works laboratory of some sort is essential, to check the purity of the ma terials employed and to ensure that the product is up to standard; an engineering works will have its chemical laboratory for this and similar purposes, its testing laboratory where the strength and character of its manufactures are sampled before they are put upon the market ; but such work is not research ; though it often may indicate where research is necessary, and lead up to original investigations of high value to the firm.