[raj bhatia]

My point about theory was to show that without it, not too many useful semiconductor devices would see the light of day. Fourier thrived under patronage from the French govt. The diffraction integral had no practical use up until it was used for lithogrpahy. No private entity would fund science that has no possibility to be used in the near future. A classic popular example is NASA. But without govt. support, there would be little basic science. We are seeing this in our own time. All the electronic devices today are clever engineering tricks resting on science developed in the earlier half of the century. The comparison to IBM is deeply flawed. IBM had a monopoly in high performance computing till a decade ago. As with every monopoly(Bell labs under AT & T is the best example), they guzzled dollars into basic science without a second thought. The payoff came decades later and most of the patent income this article cites probably comesfrom patents filed on the slightly modified basic science. No private company is in a position to guzzle zillions on basic science today without an immediate payoff.

[Logophile]

My point about theory was to show that without it, not too many useful semiconductor devices would see the light of day. Fourier thrived under patronage from the French govt. The diffraction integral had no practical use up until it was used for lithogrpahy.

Are you really suggesting that the government should lavish tax money on researchers in hopes that they will discover something that might be useful in 200 years?

Or to put it differently, if Fourier had not done that particular work when he did, would semiconductor devices be impossible to make today? Lithography was used in printing long before it was applied to semiconductor processing. If the diffraction integral is so important to making small semiconductor devices, I daresay it (or its equivalent) would have been derived in the 20th centutury when it was needed.

No private entity would fund science that has no possibility to be used in the near future.

Apparently some of them do. And more did in the past, before government money crowded out the private money.

But without govt. support, there would be little basic science.

According to the article, private money financed basic science before WWII.

The comparison to IBM is deeply flawed. IBM had a monopoly in high performance computing till a decade ago. As with every monopoly(Bell labs under AT & T is the best example), they guzzled dollars into basic science without a second thought. The payoff came decades later and most of the patent income this article cites probably comesfrom patents filed on the slightly modified basic science. No private company is in a position to guzzle zillions on basic science today without an immediate payoff.

I have to disagree on several points. First, IBM did not have a monopoly in computing. Yes, they were the biggest; but they had competitors, both here and abroad. They did research to stay the biggest. (Full disclosure: I worked for IBM for a short time.)

More to the point, IBM has competitors today. And yet, as the article points out, IBM continues to excel in research, both applied and "pure." (Dr. Kealey argues that the distinction between pure and applied research is somewhat exaggerated anyway, and I agree with him.)

AT&T was a monopoly for many years and yes, Bell Labs was a tremendous source of basic and applied research. But AT&T was unique in that respect. Many other companies that were not protected monopolies conducted

No private company is in a position to guzzle zillions on basic science today without an immediate payoff.

I see two things wrong with this statement. First, you seem to imply that basic science requires the "guzzling" of enormous amounts of money to thrive. I am not sure that is true. (Much of that money is wasted, at least at the universities.) Second, companies are not the only private entities that fund research: foundations and individuals do too.