Bell Labs Kills Fundamental Physics Research

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Wired: "After six Nobel Prizes, the invention of the transistor, laser and countless contributions to computer science and technology, it is the end of the road for Bell Labs' fundamental physics research lab. Alcatel-Lucent, the parent company of Bell Labs, is pulling out of basic science, material physics and semiconductor research and will instead be focusing on more immediately marketable areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software." Jamie points out this list of Bell Labs' accomplishments at Wikipedia, including little things like the UNIX operating system.

Comments

Wrong Alcatel isn't even profitable

[OakLEE]

First, Alcatel Lucent is a French company, listed on a French stock exchange (it's ADRs also trades in the US) so griping about North American IP laws is not only topically irrelevant, it's geographically irrelevant as well.

Second, Alcatel has been unprofitable for two straight years. It's burned through 10% of its cash reserves in those two years, and has nearly doubled it's long term debt. I don't care what type of company you're running, unless your an American automaker, you can't keep putting up numbers like that and stay in business.

Third, As many people have already pointed out, much Bell Labs research funding was enabled by AT&T's monopolization of the American telecom market until the 1980s. AT&T's breakup created competition, and when you have competition, you trim the excess fat so you can remain profitable. In fact, it's been rather a wonder that Bell Labs fundamental research arm has survived the company's many sales and acquisitions to this point.

Yes it sucks that a brilliant part of Bell Labs is slowly going the way of the dinosaur. It was a perfect example of private enterprise utilizing its resources for the public good (ok maybe not entirely since they owned patents on the research). That said, you can't expect a company to bankrupt itself for the sake of science. There are tens of thousands of employees whose jobs depend on Alcatel turning a profit at some point in the near future. Think about them.

Re:therefore

[edalytical]

His advisor must be spending his grants in Goa smoking ganja goggling at gorgeous girls in g-strings, you know fundamental T&A research.