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From: Le Chaud Lapin on 2 Jan 2010 23:01 On Jan 2, 8:45 pm, HardySpicer <gyansor...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Jan 3, 12:50 pm, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > > > So commerce can drive innovation, and usually does. Much, if not most, > > academic research is funded by companies interested in the research area > > because, guess what, they can use it to make products that make money. > > I don't see a problem here. > > Not always, scholarly pursuit is just the pursuit of knowledge for its > own sake. The money motivation factor need not play a role at all. I think a lot of thinkers start off thinking this way, before, say, the age of 25, until they discover the Rent Monster, and realize that they need to change their point of view as a matter of survival. Unfortunately, many of them make the tragic mistake of presuming that their breakthroughs alone will leaven their financial burdens, and act accordingly, neglecting their very bodies in blind pursuit of some kind of monetary prize associated somehow with the breakthroughs. Achimedes is said to have bathed so little, others forcibly carried him to the bath. Machiavelli, in his letter to Lorenzo di Medici, makes a pious request for sponsorship, not necessarily in exchange for "The Prince", but as a gesture of appreciation, since he was poor, and "The Prince" would obviously have some benefit to Medici. Heaviside was served with numerous warrants for not paying his heating bill. Einstein could have used a few more socks and other basic items. > Exactly what did Einstein have in mind when discovering relativity or At first, relativity, then later, prize money to be gained from the Nobel Prize that he expected to win so that he would have enough for himself and his ex-wife. > Newton when he discovered the laws of motion? Probably: rent. If his biographies are any indication, he was notoriously neglectful of things other people consider necessary for survival. > I do agree however that many Universities are now greedy bastards and > are in many respects becoming like companies. Yes, the trend is certainly headed this way. I am begining to think that this trend is inevitable, an artifact of class struggle. -Le Chaud Lapin-
From: brent on 3 Jan 2010 11:07 On Jan 2, 6:50 pm, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > > So commerce can drive innovation, and usually does. Much, if not most, > academic research is funded by companies interested in the research area > because, guess what, they can use it to make products that make money. > I don't see a problem here. > > -- Actually, war drives innovation the quickest. The inner drive of man to win at war is the strongest drive that man has, and has provided, by far, the most innovative thinking in man through out the ages.
From: Fred Marshall on 3 Jan 2010 13:17 HardySpicer wrote: > On Jan 3, 9:43 am, Fred Marshall <fmarshallx(a)remove_the_xacm.org> > wrote: >> It got too long and I just couldn't spend the time to read all the >> posts. So, if this is redundant then .. OK: >> >> 1) Folks with common sense and experience are invaluable. >> 2) Folks with an ability to focus on the real issue are invaluable. >> 3) Folks who can figure something out quickly and put what they know to >> use are invaluable. >> >> So, if in the process of earning a degree a person becomes a "quick >> study" (thus the search / research part) and are able to convey the crux >> of what they know or have quickly learned to everyone else (thus the >> thesis and defense) then they might be really good to have around - as >> long as they meet (1) and (2) at the same time. >> >> I have known folks who weren't really great at (1) and (2) or even (3) >> who had advanced degrees. They were still helpful when we needed a >> strong technical basis for pondering a thorny issue. But, in general, I >> didn't find these latter guys in industry - more in academia or >> government labs. There's nothing wrong with this, it's partly an >> environmental emphasis. >> >> What's the difference between a plant manager and a consultant? >> >> If something goes wrong in the plant, the manager may know what to do >> about it but maybe not why it happened or why the solution works. The >> consultant may not know what to do about it but may know why the >> solution works. Working together they may come up with a lasting >> solution.... >> >> Fred > > What about problems that have not been solved to date? ***See #3. Note that I didn't differentiate between academia, govt or industry here...... >Can your > average Joe engineer solve them or does it require some advanced > knowledge/Maths that Joe may not follow.eg pre-Widrow and co there > was no LMS,adaptive filters etc. Would an engineer in industry have > had time to sit down and work all that out on his own or in a group? ***Depends on Joe and the motivation. See Lucky on adaptive equalizers (which had industrial application motivation) which were the functional precursors to Widrow's work. I remember seeing a demo of an adaptive line canceller (at a govt lab) and asked them how it compared to the adaptive equalizers which had happened much earlier.... It gets a little hairy when we try to distinguish between "industry" and Bell Labs of course because Bell Labs was unique - more like a govt lab. > Doubt it. Maybe in a research lab environment for IBM or Bell labs but > most companies are interested in one thing only - making money! *** OK. But what is your point Hardy? Seems off topic. Fred
From: Fred Marshall on 3 Jan 2010 13:28 HardySpicer wrote: > On Jan 3, 12:50 pm, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > >> So commerce can drive innovation, and usually does. Much, if not most, >> academic research is funded by companies interested in the research area >> because, guess what, they can use it to make products that make money. >> I don't see a problem here. >> > Not always, scholarly pursuit is just the pursuit of knowledge for its > own sake. The money motivation factor need not play a role at all. > Exactly what did Einstein have in mind when discovering relativity or > Newton when he discovered the laws of motion? > I do agree however that many Universities are now greedy bastards and > are in many respects becoming like companies. > > > Hardy See #2. The best academics in engineering IMHO focus on important stuff (to the outside world). Witness who/what gets asked to be a guest speaker more often? I venture that it's the folks with something interesting / applicable to talk about. That doesn't mean it can't be esoteric. Maybe Zadeh is a good example .. but Tim or someone else would know better than I about that. So, I really disagree with the emphasis: "scholarly pursuit is *just* the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake" - particularly in engineering. I'd rather say that scholarly pursuit is the pursuit of knowledge and leave it at that. If it's already known then the pursuit is personal. If it's not already known then the pursuit is what? worldly or something like that. Scholarly pursuit *can* be just the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake - but I would not limit it to that. Fred
From: HardySpicer on 3 Jan 2010 19:25
On Jan 4, 7:28 am, Fred Marshall <fmarshallx(a)remove_the_xacm.org> wrote: > Scholarly pursuit *can* be just the pursuit of knowledge for its own > sake - but I would not limit it to that. > > Fred Neither would I but it is the best sort by far. No self interest other than the betterment of mankind and to a certain extent the self. That's what Unis are supposed to be about but the message is forgotten in such times when they are run by accountants. To me, all knowledge should be freely available and disseminated (if from a Uni at least - a company has other motives). BTW - is that not what we do here on this NG - it is free so why do people do it? Don't you industry guys want to make a quick buck out of it? Hardy |