The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation

by Jon Gertner

Put another way, a new technology can put more money in our pockets, and it can allow us to do things—call across the country, send email, write software, design skyscrapers, model pharmaceuticals—in ways that were never possible before. The results can be manifested in new products and civilizing comfort, as well as by economic growth. “The history of modernization is in essence a history of scientific and technological progress,” Wen Jiabao, the premier of China, said recently. “Scientific discovery and technological inventions have brought about new civilizations, modern industries, and the rise and fall of nations.” A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences argues that the United States, by consistently underinvesting in its education system and in scientific research over the past few decades, seems to have forgotten this lesson—a lesson that in many respects the country demonstrated for the rest of the world during the second half of the twentieth century. “While only four percent of the [U.S.] work force is composed of scientists and engineers,” the National Academy report points out, “this group disproportionately creates jobs for the other 96 percent.”