“But basic scientific work is not being done in adequate quantity because the material rewards to the individual researcher and his sponsoring agency are not great enough.
“I have shown what happens in the case of a man like Dr. Einstein. But consider the corporation that employs large numbers of men for the specific purpose of inventing and discovering new principles. Consider Gigantic Electric Corporation. It assumes a burden of five million dollars worth of basic, theoretical research per year. The results happen to be some basic laws of chemistry and fluid flow. Due to the patent situation these laws cannot be protected but they are highly welcome at Mammoth Chemical and Altitude Aircraft, whose engineers get large numbers of patents on the devices they develop out of the principles discovered at Gigantic.
“Next year, Gigantic’s research produces a semipermeable membrane theory. Mammoth Chemical thanks them kindly, does some development work, and obtains patents on methods of extracting fresh water from the sea at a dollar per cubic mile or so. The AEC improves the filters at Oak Ridge. Somebody else gets patents on separating useful hydrocarbons from petroleum by-products for plastic manufacture.
“Gigantic Electric gets nothing. Their stockholders howl. Gigantic drops the big theoretical research program. Nobody dares take it up because, under our present Patent System, there’s no return in money from theoretical research on an adequate scale to supply the needs of the nation.
“There’s your problem, gentlemen, it’s not the question of Dr. Martin Nagle being a dog in the manger with respect to the few things he has available. It’s a major problem that affects every sincere, responsible scientist of top-drawer caliber in the nation. It affects the scientific welfare of the whole country. I call upon you to give us the solution we need!”
There was a small dinner party that night at the hotel with a couple dozen of his closest friends. Keyes was there and Jennings, and Don Wolfe. They invited Dykstra just for the hell of it, but the professor had urgent business elsewhere.
Mart kept the talk away from the hearing, and from the general subject of his discoveries. It kept spilling over into their conversation, but he had no intention of letting it be aired at the dinner table. All they had to say now was for the Committee. Only Jennings broke through with one piece of information pertinent to Mart’s work. He reported that Goodman had acquired one of the tavern-size Volcanoes and was working out a system to beat the game.
Testimony was resumed on Tuesday morning. Dykstra was the first to be called. He arose with a clearing of his throat and moved portentously to the front of the room with the faint side-wise waddle that marked his movements.
He said: “From that great moment, now lost in the dim shades of history, when the first cave man struck fire from flint to warm and illumine his cavern, there has been a code which the true scientist unwaveringly observes. Unspoken and unwritten, it is nevertheless engraved upon his heart in letters that burn. That code is that knowledge shall be free. It shall be the rightful possession of all mankind. The true scientist would no more think of taking out a patent upon his work than he would think of deliberately falsifying the reports of his observations. Nowhere, in the presence of scientific men, have I heard anything quite so insulting as the reference made yesterday to the revered name of Dr. Einstein. As if he would actually be concerned with the trivialities of royalties from the manufacture of photoelectric ceils! Royalties are for tinkerers and garage mechanics. Scientists have nothing to do with such!”
Cogswell coughed behind his hand. “It would seem, Dr. Dykstra, that scientists must also eat.”