[00:01.54]Lesson 15
[00:03.45]Secrecy in industry
[00:12.27]Why is secrecy particularly important in the chemical industries?
[00:19.76]Two factors weigh heavily against the effectiveness of scientific research in industry.
[00:26.40]One is the general atmosphere of secrecy in which it is carried out,
[00:31.91]the other the lack of freedom of the individual research worker.
[00:37.00]In so far as any inquiry is a secret one,
[00:40.77]it naturally limits all those engaged in carrying it out from effective contact with their fellow scientists either in other countries or in universities,
[00:51.08]or even, often enough, in other departments of the same firm.
[00:56.75]The degree of secrecy naturally varies considerably.
[01:01.11]Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches which are of such general and fundamental nature
[01:07.94]that it is a positive advantage to them not to keep them secret.
[01:13.61]Yet a great many processes depending on such research are sought for with complete secrecy until the stage at which patents can be taken out.
[01:24.58]Even more processes are never patented at all but kept as secret processes.
[01:31.12]This applies particularly to chemical industries,
[01:34.96]where chance discoveries play a much larger part than they do in physical and mechanical industries.
[01:42.16]Sometimes the secrecy goes to such an extent that the whole nature of the research cannot be mentioned.
[01:49.61]Many firms, for instance have great difficulty in obtaining technical or scientific books from libraries
[01:56.64]because they are unwilling to have their names entered as having taken out such and such a book,
[02:02.19]for fear the agents of other firms should be able to trace the kind of research they are likely to be undertaking.