[egillia3]

Hey! It’s Eric (the author). To the author of this comment, I’d say that the use of “long leash within a narrow fence” (which directed Langmuir’s work) or “circumscribed freedom” (which directed much Bell work) is generally compatible with researcher interests.

As I talk about in the article, Langmuir was able to pick from a bunch of problems in his wheelhouse…there were just conditions. And those conditions meant whatever area he picked might come with a high willingness to spend from GE! And if his work yielded results GE would have a way to quickly deploy the knowledge. All of which is great. To put his work in a box with what the Coolidge-types did is probably unfair. He was following curiosity under constraints, that’s all.

That is not to say all basic research roles in the world should look like that. But it makes sense given most basic researchers don’t fully understand which of all the problems they could happily pursue are actually most useful to industry. MIT professors of the early 1900s used to source research problems somewhat similarly.

Hopefully all of that helps a bit!