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

therefore

[circletimessquare]

when the next laser, the next solid state transistor, is invented, it will be done in China and India

Re:therefore

[raddan]

Why, are China and India doing basic science research? My impression that pretty much *everyone* is getting out of the game. Deregulating telecom and breaking up AT&T did wonders for telephone customers, but it did not do good things for smart people with big budgets. Consider the fact that UNIX started as an excuse to hack on computer games.

Another vicim

[Nerdfest]

of the "all that matters is the next quarter" school of thought? Between that and over the top IP laws, North America is headed for trouble.

Re:Another vicim

[LithiumX]

Welcome to the markets of the 21st century! Every company hemorrhages cash just to stay operational, and everyone is owned by stockholders who are only interested in profit. If you're not expanding, you're losing - and if you lose more than a few times, you're done.

(and if you're not constantly on top of things, you'll be eaten alive by the pseudo-third-world, undisputed master of Cheap Plastic Crap(tm))

It's ultimately consumers who are to blame. Almost all of us would rather buy low-quality mass-produced items instead of a higher quality product that costs 10% more. We'd rather go for the comfort of eating at a major chain instead of a one-location restaurant (which usually costs about the same). We'll howl about trade deficits, but end up almost exclusively buying foreign-made products. We'll lament the effect of crushing steamroller BigBox stores, but don't even notice the smaller shops we drive by on the way there.

I'm as guilty as anyone else here, and you know that there's an extremely high probability that you are too - useless token gestures aside.

Shortsighted, as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

"will instead be focusing on more immediately marketable areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software."

If they truly wanted to focus on these areas, and the future of these areas, they would continue the research. Bell/Lucent would not be where they are today without those now basic, but groundbreaking at the time discoveries that they've made in the past.

This seems very shortsighted of them, which unfortunately seems to be the new American way.

Restructuring?

[Sockatume]

With no basic materials science or semiconductor research, I'm not sure what they're going to be able to develop in the fields of "high-speed electronics" or "nanotechnology". Perhaps they're going to restructure so that the existing basic science researchers are more "product driven", being put into marketable research areas with specific goals, but that strikes me as a sure-fire way of duplicating effort and limiting their scope for innovation.

Re:Greed.

[MightyMartian]

It's beginning to look more Rome's last century; Emperors being crowned amidst the decay of the once-great city, old monoliths being torn down to make new ones, because the coin had been so devalued that no one could afford to pay artisans of any skill.

Little by little the American Empire erodes, its more distant conquests taxing it more and more, its currency faltering, more of its talent having to be imported.

I'm looking the Democratic National Convention and its soon-to-come Republican counterpart, and I can't help but thinking that they are indeed fiddling while Rome burns.

three tier system

[shmlco]

It's a three tier system now. Colleges do all the research, the government funds it, and corporations patent the results.

Small Picture MBA Thinking

[catchblue22]

I would argue that decisions like this are to a large extent the result of a way of thinking specifically associated with business schools and their MBA graduates. It is a type of thinking that looks at the operations of businesses through the lens of a limited set of parameters, as if these parameters can be a substitute for concrete knowledge of the nuts and bolts details of a company's operations. MBA thinking causes managers to close their minds, to limit their decisions to what is immediately measurable and graphable. Extreme adherents to this way of thinking often fail to see the big picture in their business and in the economy.

The best example of this that I can think of occurred during the Mad Cow crisis in the UK a few years ago. In the lead-up to that crisis, MBA manager types were loathe to listen to the warning signs about growing incidents of BSE found in British cattle. They didn't want to act because they feared it would have a drastic impact on their bottom line profits. Although they clearly saw the huge costs of pre-emptive action to deal with the disease, what they failed to see were the costs of inaction. They didn't understand that their inaction would lead to the destruction of the entire British cattle stock. They failed to see that the British meat industry would remain a pariah for many years to come. They failed to balance the huge cost of acting pre-emptively with the destruction of their entire industry as a result of inaction.

Another example occurred when Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard changed that corporation from one of the most creative companies in the world to a commondity PC maker, whose main contribution to the economy is in marketing and distribution. More recently, Maple Leaf foods of Canada has had to institute a massive meat recall, due to Listeria contamination. The contamination was due to its nickel and diming of its quality assurance and sanitation departments. This recall, and the ensuing lawsuits could result in the destruction of the company. All caused because bean counters wanted to save a few dollars on bacterial testing and cleaning.

I am saying what I am because I genuinely believe it. I believe that the people running most of our corporations have little sense of history, of culture, and little sense of what actually makes our economy work. I once had a conversation with an MBA type in which he argued that food was not economically important because it only made up 3% of the Gross Domestic Product. I'd like to see what would happen if he reduced his food budget to zero.