The Dynamics of Technology: Creation and Diffusion of Skills and Knowledge

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Creation and Diffusion of Skills and Knowledge |

Editors Roddam Narasimha ¢ J. Srinivasan ¢ $.K. Biswas

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The Dynamics of Technology

Copyright © Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan, S.K. Biswas, 2003

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 2003 by Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42, Panchsheel Enclave New Delhi 110 017

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Published by Tejeshwar Singh for Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset by Krishtel eMaging Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Chennai in Century Schoolbook 10pt and Futura Lt Bt and printed at Chaman Enterprises, New Delhi. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The dynamics of technology: creation and diffusion of skills and knowledge / edited by Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan, S.K. Biswas. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Technology—Social aspects. I. Narasimha, Roddam. II. Srinivasan, Jagannathan. III. Biswas, S.K., 1945.

HM846.D96

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ISBN: 0-7619-9670-2 (US-Hb)

Sage Production Santosh Rawat

Team:

2003

2003010252

81-7829-134-7 (India-Hb)

Sunaina

Dalaya,

Sushanta

Gayen

and

To the memory of Satish Dhawan 1920-2002 Director of the Indian Institute of Science, 1962-1980, Chairman of the Space Commission, 1972-1984. Friend, teacher, leader, humane technologist.

Contents Vili

List of Figures Introduction The Technology Engine: The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

I.

Technology in History: Case Studies and Concepts, circa 1700—2000

21

Ian Inkster

Il.

Il.

IV.

V.

VI. VII.

VIII.

Transplanting Technology: Two Episodes in

Japanese

History Hiroshi Sato Science, Technology and Society: A Tale about Rocket Development during 1750-1850

85

art

Roddam Narasimha Challenge, Response and Serendipity in the Design of Materials Robert W. Cahn The Science and Art of Processing Materials K. Balasubramanian and P. Rama Rao Energy and Economics in a Consumer Society Sir Hugh Ford R&D in Industry Ashok S. Ganguly Ideas and Idealism in Technology

137 155 197

213 233

Arnold Pacey

IX. X.

Thoughts on Engineering Education Hans W. Liepmann Can the Cultures of India Survive the Information Age?

265 277

Kenneth Keniston About the Editors and Contributors Index

293 296

List_ot 2.1

Figures

Map of Japan, Korea and eastern part of China in the 4th century

86

2.2

Sketch of Horyu-Ji

89

2.3

Aerial view of Nintoku-Ryo

91

2.4

Plan of Heijyo-Kyo

92

2.5 5.1

A bronze bell Pressure— temperature process space

5.2

Near-net shape products and processes

174

5.3

Semi-solid alloy processing

176

5.4

Strain rate—temperature process space

183

(EN

Innovation half-life

216

12

R&D intensity versus profit growth

217

7.3

Profit margins and R&D intensity

218

7.4

European consumer products: market entry

7.5

The innovation funnel

221

7.6 ‘hed

Consumer/technology matrix

223

Aggregate project plan

223

8.1

Brunel’s ship

236

8.2

Otto Lilienthal’s hang glider

239

8.3

Techniques for bandaging limbs

251

position performances

95 160

219

Introduction

The Technology Engine: The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion RODDAM NARASIMHA, J. SRINIVASAN AND S.K. Biswas

Today, technology has become a major force in our daily lives with huge resources, from both private and public agencies, being spent to develop new technologies. While some embrace these developments and are filled with an extraordinary faith in the potential of technology as a force for human good or national power, others dread new technology, seeing it as socially disruptive. The world seems divided into technological optimists and technological pessimists. In this volume we take the view that technology is like a powerful engine; its creation and maintenance require armies of engineers, ideas from science, research and development, the pressures and constraints of the marketplace and national security, the skills and the tacit knowledge that reside in the technical and artisanal manpower built by, and available to, each nation or company, and the financial resources that banks, governments

and other institutions can command

and provide. We see

engineering as a part—but a very important part—of the technological enterprise, for engineering (modifying slightly a definition due to G.F.C. Rogers) refers to the practice of organising the design and construction of any artefact which transforms the physical world we live in—and increasingly the biological world as well—in order to meet some recognised need. At any given time, technology moves forward with knowledge obtained from any of the variety of sources and tools that may be available at the time it is created; and these sources and tools include science, craft, art, experience, intuition, testing, computation, simulation etc.

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Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

How does this mighty engine of technology work? What are the roots of its power—social, economic, cultural or political? How is technology created, and how does it diffuse? It is these questions that the present volume attempts to tackle. Engineers and technologists are generally not very articulate about these matters, as they are busy making the technology engine work smoothly. We hope that the essays presented in this book—many written by engineers and scientists, and others by scholars in sociology, history etc.— will suggest some of the answers. They are written for the general reader, but we hope that the interested engineer will also find something here that will help illuminate issues he may have wrestled with, without having realised the nature of the powerful forces operating in the world of technology. This volume is by no means comprehensive: there are many issues

that have

not been tackled

at all. However,

if the

approach taken here is found to be useful and interesting, the editors may consider compiling similar volumes. While technology has been making inroads into the central spaces, of our lives, the last decade or two have seen a proliferation of scholarly works whose objective has been to understand the nature of technology. We begin with the studies of Robert Solow! (who won the Nobel prize in economics), showing that more than half the economic growth of a nation derives from technical factors. Vincenti? has discussed the issue (as he calls it) of what engineers know and how they know it. Headrick* has examined how technology provided Europe with the tools of empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many others* have analysed the reasons for technological success. In the past, different cultures have been technologically innovative and strong, but they have also witnessed—over time—a decline in their abilities. The most dramatic issues of this kind concern the history of Asia, which have crystallised into what is called the Needham question. As his monumental study of the history of science and technology in ancient China matured, Needham said®: With the appearance on the scene of intensive studies of mathematics, science, technology and medicine in the great

non-European civilizations, debate is likely to sharpen, for

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion ll 3

the failure of China and India to give rise to distinctively modern science while being ahead of Europe for fourteen previous centuries is going to take some explaining.

This question has not yet received a satisfactory answer. It is not directly tackled in this volume either, but Needham’s question hovers in the background in several of the chapters presented here. We begin with a long and scholarly chapter by Ian Inkster, who takes a close look at technology in history during the period 1700-2000. These three centuries, which saw the flowering of the scientific and industrial revolutions, have affected the history of the world we live in today in immediate and remarkable ways. Inkster begins by pointing out that technology extends beyond the machines it makes: the history of technology is human history in all its diversity. Technological change is not the fundamental cause for other changes in society and polity, but rather is a reflection of more general changes triggered presumably by historical factors. So it is no surprise that attention has, in recent times, turned away from accounts of heroic breakthroughs to those of incremental improvements, the agencies for technology transfer and diffusion, and the institutional changes that trigger and promote widespread innovation. As the realisation that different societies have been innovative in different ways at different times spreads, the concept of barriers inhibiting technological growth assumes importance. Growth occurs where barriers are the weakest (as they were in 18th-century England, for example), although such barriers can become stronger during the process of industrialisation itself. These barriers can either be erected by the ‘leader nations’ where the most advanced developments are taking place, or they can be internal to the ‘follower nations’ and the culture of not only the common people but also the elite of such nations. Finally, these barriers could centre on the mechanisms that inhibit actual technology transfer (for example, movement of people, strategic constraints, access to information etc.). Do these ‘barriers’ constitute a sufficient explanation for technological backwardness? The key role played by the state, whether as a technology developer or as an agent of change, has to be appreciated. Case

4 HM Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

studies of Japan in the early 20th century, of East Asian growth in the late 20th century, and of Russia and Holland in earlier centuries after the Industrial Revolution in England, show how the state can exert a powerful influence over technology transfer. Is culture, then, an influencing factor? Certainly in some sense, but it is interesting to note how Confucian philosophies, seen as impediments to technological growth in 19th-century China, have become a virtue in explaining the occurrence of the East Asian miracle. The movement of people has been another major factor responsible for technology transfer. Britain gained from European immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries, the US from European and Asian immigrants in the 20th century, and Japan (as Sato discusses in greater detail in Chapter II) twice in its history. East Asian nations have followed different cultural practices in their development, eschewing the Atlantic brand of competitive individualism: will these practices serve them well when the problem shifts form diffusion of technology to its creation? Inkster concludes that, on the whole, there is no accepted paradigm that guides analysis of these important issues today. The ideas of James Stuart Mill and Karl Marx are problematic. History has shown that too much social resistance to imported technologies can lead to political breakdown (as it did in Russia in the early 20th century and in Indonesia in the 1960s), as the industrializers who come later do face a more difficult situation. However, it seems that the institutions that developed, even in the West, have not been driven so much by capitalism as by the nature of the problems thrown up by the new industries themselves. Such institutions have included universities, polytechnics, research institutes, bureaus of standards and in general a wide variety of mechanisms for technology transfer, especially those promoting the strength of artisanal and urban culture, relative openness, freedom from persecution, security of property and income etc.

Inkster mentions Japan several times in his essay; and the history of technology transplantation in Japan is also taken up in detail by Hiroshi Sato in Chapter II. Sato begins by pointing out that great technological ‘invasions’ (as he calls them) occurred twice in Japanese history. Besides the more

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion Ml 5

familiar ‘invasion’ from Europe and the US following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which led to Japan’s current technological prowess, there existed an earlier ‘invasion’ from China through Korea during the 5th—8th centuries ap. There were some differences between these two major episodes of technology transplantation in Japan, separated as they were by more than 1,000 years, but what is remarkable is that there were so many similarities as well. In both cases the Japanese formula was to ‘import, digest (or absorb) and improve (even surpass)’. Japan was unified around ap 400, and it defeated the Korean countries soon thereafter (northern Korea had been a Chinese colony for about four centuries before AD 313). A flood of Korean talent, including scholars, painters, carpenters, founders etc., came to Japan at

the time, and brought with them Chinese/Korean technologies (and Buddhism). These immigrants were welcomed by Japan, offered land and allowed to settle down, and they in turn went on to raise wealthy families, being eventually absorbed into the Japanese mainstream. Technology transfer occurred through people, and soon the Japanese were constructing large temples and imperial capitals in the Chinese architectural style, as also big tombs for the nobility etc. Bronze technology was also absorbed, mirrors and swords being the first to be copied from the Chinese. These processes and products however were greatly improved eventually. A tomb built for Emperor Nintoku around ab 440 was bigger than anything known in China or Korea. The Great Buddha of Nara, 16 metres high and weighing 380 tons, is one of the biggest casting works ever executed in the world. The second wave of transplanted technology began in a small way with the advent of Portuguese sailors around 1540, armed with rifles (which were immediately copied and improved upon by the Japanese), but became significant only in the middle of the 19th century. The Japanese government realised that its traditional ‘closed-door’ policy of isolation was no longer tenable, and thus began a frantic programme of modernisation. Once again the technology transfer was initiated through people, but the western advisers and engineers who came to Japan did not settle there this time. The new technologies they brought with them were quickly absorbed and Japan signalled its strength around the turn of the 20th century with victory in the wars

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Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

against the Chinese and the Russians, and in World War I. Between the world wars the Japanese mastered the technology of earthquake-resistant buildings, shipping, aircraft and electrical machinery. After the end of World War II, when they were prohibited from making aircraft, Japanese aeronautical engineers migrated to other industries such as automobiles, where they soon became major global players. Japanese strengths in electronic goods also became known across the world. Sato probes the reasons for Japanese successes in both these episodes in their history. He attributes the successes to the curiosity of the Japanese people about new products, their adaptability to changing circumstances (political as well as technological), their flexible attitude to religion (they are both Shintos and Buddhists at the same time), their aptitude for hard work, etc. Prince Shotoku’s constitution of ap 604 began by saying, ‘The best virtue for us is harmony in the community’. Right from school, Japanese are taught to work in teams and be uniform and cooperative, and are discouraged from being argumentative. Engineers and technicians are highly respected. The Japanese state, while working through private industry, has played a key role in encouraging technological growth in the country. Great importance has been placed on education. Sato notes that the Japanese have also been lucky, as they barely escaped colonisation, whereas (to use Inkster’s phrase) India became a ‘formal’ and China an ‘informal’ colony of the West in the 18th and 19th centuries. The discussion shifts to India in the paper by Narasimha (Chapter III), who looks at another interesting episode in the history of technology. It is well known that the first written accounts of rockets appear in China in the 11th century aD, but not so widely known that the spectacular developments that have taken place in the last two centuries were triggered by events which occurred in the princely state of Mysore in south India. In the second half of the 18th century, as the Moghul Empire declined many kingdoms arose to fill the growing vacuum of power, and European trading companies also became key players in the power games that followed. Among one of these rulers of the time was Tipu Sultan of Mysore, who was remarkable in many ways. He was a Sufi warrior (following a mystic Islamic sect that emphasised personal union of the

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion ll 7

soul with God, and had such well-known adherents as Omar

Khayyam); a technology buff, curious about all kinds of inventions, Indian and European; a perceptive observer of politics who saw that the British were not just one more player in a confusing game, but that they represented a new kind of power in the Indian subcontinent. He encouraged the use of rockets as military weapons, and, utilising the great metallurgical skills of Indian craftsmen, made rockets with iron casings whose performance could surpass what was available in Europe at the time. One of the more famous victims of the Mysore rockets was the man who later came to be known as the victor at Waterloo and the Duke of Wellington. In an incident just before the fourth Anglo—Mysore War of 1799, the future Duke was completely demoralised by a hail of rocketry and musket fire near Srirangapatna. Narasimha’s account of these rockets is sandwiched between general discussions of the relations between science, technology and society—in recent times, and in ancient India. He points out that technology is not always applied science. Indeed, the relationship between the two can sometimes be inverted: thermodynamics is a child of the steam revolution, as is clear from the fact that the second law of thermodynamics, considered one of the most fundamental ‘laws of nature’, has for long been stated as a limit on the efficiency of such human artefacts as an engine.

Narasimha’s analysis of science and technology in ancient India argues that they resided in different communities, castes or even families, who protected their intellectual property jealously. The extraordinary developments in mathematics in India, for example, did not lead to the kind of mathematisation of science that characterised the scientific revolution in Europe, although ideas that travelled to the West from India and West Asia probably acted as one of the triggers of that revolution. As Narasimha’s account shows, the material used played a key role in the development of rockets in India in the 18th century. New materials continue to determine the success or failure of new technologies; one of the most well known instances of this is the gas turbine, invented in the 1930s by Whittle in

England and O’Hain in Germany (for which they received the Draper prize, the engineering equivalent of the Nobel). Without

8 HE Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

the development of high temperature super alloys, the gas turbine would not have been a reality. Chapters IV and V in this volume discuss the history and the technology of new material development. Robert Cahn (Chapter IV) outlines, with numerous instances, how the dynamics of challenge and response have led to the creation of new materials. Silicon-iron sheets, coated

with insulating material, have been used for a long time to make transformer laminations. Beginning with some basic research on rapid solidification in the late 1950s, soft ferromagnetic glasses appeared as challenges to silicon-iron in the 1980s. So, steel manufacturers worked towards meeting the challenge, using the same rapid solidification techniques of the challengers and some very novel coatings, thereby vastly improving the existing silicon-iron properties. The history of strong fibres—in carbon, glass, boron, polymers and a variety of other materials—provides another fascinating story of challenge and response. There are many applications—from fishing rods and tennis racquets to aircraft wings—where fibre composites, with their novel properties and light weight have successfully challenged conventional materials. Meanwhile, metallic alloys have also improved vastly in response to the challenge. In his chapter Cahn also discusses nano-structured materials, andin particular ‘hard metals’. There is also the significant role played by ‘serendipity in the development of new materials: chance occurrences or observations in the laboratory that, to a prepared mind, reveal new possibilities. Cahn recounts the tortuous stories of age-hardening materials, electric light filaments, the super-alloys (mentioned earlier) that made gas turbines, nanofilters and ashless polymers possible. In many of these cases, much systematic research was necessary before the accidental observation could be exploited commercially. And, as the case often is, the scientific explanation comes long after successful practice is established, reinforcing a point made in Narasimha’s article. The interplay between science and technology—with one or the other leading in what is eventually a joint enterprise—is brought out forcefully in Cahn’s fascinating examples, many taken from the work done in large industrial research laboratories such as those run by General Electric and Du Pont.

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion ll 9

The extraordinary role that new materials have played in the emergence of new technologies however does not stop with the discovery of the new material; it is followed by a complex and rich series of activities that can be called the product creation process. Balasubramanian and Rama Rao describe this process in some detail in Chapter V. According to them it consists of a phase when information about needs and applications is collected and analysed, product ideas are conceived and evaluated, and designs are made. It is then that process technologies come into the picture: basic technical know-how for manufacture is assembled, requisite tools and equipment are designed, prototypes are engineered, pilot production runs made, the product is tested in the marketplace and teething problems are sorted out before true commercial manufacturing starts. Even at this stage one still has to worry about possible environmental problems, packaging, shipment, disposability or reusability. There is an extraordinarily long process chain between the idea and a product on the market shelf—ready for use by the public. Materials processing is a crucial component of this chain and this is what the chapter sets out to describe here. This has been happening all along in nature; and, indeed, ‘Our planet earth may be seen as a gigantic system that has in its continuing evolution processed primordial materials into what may be called natural macroproducts—in the earth’s crust, mantle and core’ and elsewhere. Natural processes occur over a whole range of temperatures and pressures: at the high end in the sun and the stars and the interior of the planets, and at the low end in outer space. Man has only been able to cover a small region in this vast ‘process space’, but that little region is what leads to all the myriad products that all of us routinely use. At first man’s main parameter of control was temperature: combustion of naturally occurring fuels provided heat. Over time, however, more and more control variables were added, enlarging the dimensionality of process space: mass fluxes, pressure, strain rate etc. The advances made in vacuum technology enabled cleaner processing in order to obtain purer materials, and also led to the development of physical and chemical vapour deposition techniques. Science and technology followed or rather led each other as techniques improved.

10 Ml Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

Casting and solidification are among the oldest metallurgical processes known to man. However, advances in these techniques are made continually, inspired by the need to control the microstructure of the material in order to obtain desirable properties, and by the possibility of ‘near-net shaping’ processes that immediately lead to products very close to the final form. The success of microstructure control has been possible only with decades of patient data accumulation after painstaking research. One way of obtaining this control is through extremely rapid cooling (mentioned also by Cahn), possible on products of extremely small size. Single-crystal microstructures are very useful in electronic materials and turbine blades. Equally useful are the additive processes—instead of removing material by machining to create

the desired product from standard stock (like bars), the part is

made up by deposition of layers of material, to the required shape. With the intensive use of computer-aided design, this enables rapid prototyping. Processing can also be done at very high temperatures by initiating deformation on the ‘mush’ that the material becomes at the solid—liquid transitional temperatures. Current technology can process materials at pressures ranging from a hundred to a few thousand atmospheres. Nature has been producing diamonds at pressures of 50,000 atmospheres, and temperatures above 1700 degrees Kelvin. Pressures of this kind can indeed be generated by detonating explosives and from electric discharges, two techniques which form the basis of processes involving high energy-rate working of materials. In fact, materials processing can be carried on at temperatures reaching melting point, and over 14 orders of magnitude in the strain rate! It can be done from natural geological processing or superplastic techniques at the low end (involving long times),to explosive forming at the high end (very short times). Some of these techniques are so expensive that they are relevant only to low-volume, high-value products (e.g., in aerospace applications). High strain-rate superplastic forming may be appropriate in metal—matrix composites.

This account of state-of-the-art materials processing shows the extraordinary arsenal of techniques that has been built over decades of highly focussed research following what may often be (as Cahn called it) a serendipitous discovery. Once again, the

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion ll 11

point that is driven home is that science and technology work together; and that, whether the process occurs in the core of the earth or on the shop-floors of industry, the principles remain the same: there is a continuum. The very success of these enormous efforts in engineering however has led to new problems as well. The world has now become a consumer society and has, particularly in the last 50 years, become a profligate user of its resources. Hugh Ford (Chapter VI) discusses these issues and points out that

much of what today is marketed as a perceived need is no more than minor change, often for its own sake, but so presented as to encourage the public to discard its existing equipment and buy new, with an unacceptable loss of irreplaceable energy. He goes so far as to say, ‘Today’s whole crazy edifice depends, not upon increasing our material wealth but in destroying it after a relatively short life in favour of something new in order to keep the edifice from tumbling’. According to him we are urgently in need of a new definition of the word ‘wealth’. The reason that this has happened is in some sense connected with the progress in materials science and engineering (the subject of Chapters IV and V). As the restrictions imposed on the use of high pressure and temperature for cheap and efficient energy production were overcome, materials technology was transformed. This opened up an unprecedented horizon where the quality of life improved enormously and rapidly, as tasks which had required human labour could now be achieved at the push of a button. This, however, has been possible because the quantity of energy used by man for this improvement also increased manifold; quality of life and quantity of energy seem to have gone hand in hand. However, as energy consumption has increased, problems relating to this increase have also surfaced. First, there exists the question of the global availability of fossil fuel resources. There are questions concerning the environment and climate change. Ford points out how even such a simple object as a glass bottle represents the use of a very appreciable amount of energy—from the time when the raw minerals have

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Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

the bottle is to be extracted from the earth to the time when sophistisold and used, and possibly discarded. To take a more reprecated example, Ford looks at the high-speed train, which comfort. sents a considerable advance in travel and passenger to make However, by the time that the total energy required ing and the system work has been used—from the strengthen ts of improvement of the railway track to the use of vast amoun ion energy intrinsic to the manufacture, installation and operat into an of the gantreys, overhead cables, feeder line etc., that go

electric locomotive—it is not clear that any energy has eventu ally been saved. Ford says that several developments made in engineering are ‘a pilgrim’s journey to the shrine where three is steps forward are not always restricted to two steps back’. It of waste this that ering engine nical mecha in however not only energy occurs; bridges, dams, buildings, roads, electrical machinery are also basically energy-rich. We can also look at how water has been used. Cheap energy has made water easily available in recent times. The consumption of water in Britain has increased from 10 billion litres to 17 billion litres a day over the 30-year period, 1960-90. When, in the past, everybody had to lift water from their own wells and transport it to their homes every drop of water was precious, but now when it is available at the turn of a tap it tends to be wasted. In his chapter, Ford proposes that the total energy life cycle should form the basis of the decisions taken on the way man shapes his future and the way that he devises, makes and uses the products of manufacturing. As the availability of fossil fuel becomes a problem, the question of whether renewable sources of energy fills this gap or not arises. Ford comes to the conclusion that this would be unlikely. As energy becomes a major concern materials can be rated according to the energy they use during their manufacture and processing. Figures vary from 58 MJ/kg for cold-rolled steel strips and 112 MJ/kg for low-density polyethylene (main processing only), to 290 MJ/kg for aluminium strips. These of course have to be compared with the output energy for common fuel oil, which is a little more than 40 MJ/kg. Ford points out that the notion of basing wealth on a banking system as represented by a number on a promissory note did

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion Ml 13

have some cogency when frugal societies conserved the products of everyday life, repaired them, maintained them or reutilised the materials in some way. But that notion has led to a prodigal attitude where products have to be discarded quickly to keep the system going. Most artefacts of today—refrigerators, computers, furniture etc.—are often incapable of repair and are thrown away even though they may still be fit for the purpose for which they were made. In many instances equipment are so made that they cannot be dismantled and spare parts cannot be fitted. Ford quotes an instance where spare parts which could be obtained from a contractor for 83 pence cost £170 from the original manufacturer. He further points out that the engineer has not been the decision-maker during the 20th century. He has been strongly influenced and controlled by financial and political forces. Unfortunately, it will be the engineer who will be condemned by future generations for the consumer society of today. He calls upon the engineering community to seriously re-examine the path that technology is taking, for it will not be able to shrug off responsibility for failing to take any major new initiative. Cahn calls for a systematic historiography of industrial research, and it should be interesting to analyse how a great global industrial house like Unilever manages its R&D effort. Ashok Ganguly (Chapter VII) points out how, in today’s world, finding ‘that seamless link between consumer needs, discovery and the marketplace—and doing so better and faster than competitors’ is what distinguishes the leaders from the others: ‘The rewards for being number two or number three are becoming progressively less attractive’. There are demands everywhere—in both private and public sectors—for greater accountability in the research laboratories and academic institutions and Ganguly considers such pressures potentially conducive to original thinking. In the 1990s, the consumer not only began to expect better quality, but also became concerned about the environment and demanded greater ‘naturalness’. The marketplace has now

become very competitive, and the half-life of successful innovations is falling. Being first to market is crucial. Profitable businesses need to therefore be agile. ‘Time is not negotiable’, as Mr Honda had said, way back in 1937.

14 Ml Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

To achieve profit growth R&D is essential, although spending more on R&D does not guarantee bigger profits: the R&D has to be managed well. This means building core competencies, anticipating customer needs and overcoming barriers to speed. Ganguly goes on to describe in some detail a methodology that industrial R&D centres can use to ensure that R&D is effectively integrated into business strategies and objectives of the industry. Where it is not so integrated R&D tends to become irrelevant. At the same time an industry that tries to achieve savings by reducing R&D expenditure is probably in decline. The process of integration involves the setting up ofa variety of ‘gates’ through which ideas for new products have to pass; a rigorous, disciplined effort is required to achieve the industry’s business objectives. Common, companywide software can act as a catalyst in innovation management. However, the people required for working in such a rapidly changing environment need to be trained differently. Human resource management in industry is increasingly becoming a key strategy to link people with business roles, promoting leadership, matching personal and business development interests, and creating multifunctional teams. On the other hand constant change can be unsettling for employees. The management has to appreciate this fact, and ensure good communication throughout the organisation in order to avoid such problems as demoralisation, confusion and wild gossip. In spite of these problems, however, given the right strategies in human resource development, there will eventually emerge a group of creative industrial scientists and engineers who will derive great satisfaction from seeing ideas converted to market shares and margins. In all of this it becomes necessary to be able to audit the actual contributions of R&D. Neither inputs nor outputs are themselves of any value as far as industry is concerned, and eventually an appropriate cost benefit analysis is what is required. Ganguly concludes with the thought that it is no longer going to be possible to succeed in business without continuous value addition through knowledge, for the business world is now characterised by a shifting balance of growth, markets and customer demands around the world.

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion Ml 15

But, should the market be the sole driver of R&D in engineering? Does market demand always articulate the full range of social or public needs? Is there room for a kind of ‘idealism’ in technology development? Can there be a ‘private’ technology different from ‘public’ technology, as the well known historian of science, Gerald Holton, argued: is there a private science apart from public science? These fascinating questions are discussed by Arnold Pacey (Chapter VIII). The word idealism can be used in two senses. One, to represent an ‘aspiration towards higher things’; Pacey quotes Samuel Florman about how ‘every great engineering work is an expression of motivation and of purpose which cannot be divorced from religious implications’. The other sense of idealism is the inspiration of humanitarian or social goals. Engineering has had its share of both. When the term ‘civil’ engineering came into use before 1768, the idea was to promote engineering for public benefit (roads, bridges, canals etc.), as distinguished from ‘military’ engineering. John Smeaton, a pioneering civil engineer, felt there was ‘a debt to the common stock of public happiness or accommodation’. However, before delving into the other kind of idealism, Pacey considers the nature of ‘private’ technology, driven variously by personal enthusiasms, a desire to promote something aesthetic, the pursuit of ‘technically sweet’ options (to use Oppenheimer’s phrase), or to symbolise faith in technical progress. When Sir George Cayley built his gliders, the Wright Brothers built their airplane, or Eiffel built his tower (all from their own money) they were pursuing private technologies. When 19th century paint, foremen ran workshops with gleaming brass and spotless anan ng displayi and they were expressing an aesthetic value, es Sometim arts. the and cient connection between technology s bethese private enthusiasms become obsessions, as engineer their times other at come bewitched by technological possibilities; public or s resource development is thwarted because of lack of support—or the absence of a market. is the Apart from this technical and aesthetic ideology, there at logy techno question of ‘social’ ideology—can it shape public for g eerin all? There have been several examples of engin e worked hard humanitarian purposes: Florence Nightingal

16 Ml Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

on the design and construction of hospitals, Victorian sanitary engineers improved public health facilities enormously, others devised toys or playground equipment for children, etc. Pacey also discusses his own involvement in the ‘appropriate’ or ‘intermediate’ technology movement of the recent past. Although such projects have met with some success, at times (e.g., in housing) wonderful apartments built with an abstract social ideal may not find favour with the intended beneficiaries. Pacey attributes the failure of some of these utopian projects both to internal contradictions in the movements spawning them and to resistance from those controlling mainstream technology. In actual fact, however, most engineers do like to feel their

work as socially useful as well as technically interesting and challenging: their ideal is to gain both private and public satisfaction, through work that is economically viable. Indeed private enthusiasms have led to novel technologies, but they tend to become public when successful. Utopian projects do not always succeed. They may end up influencing public perceptions about what technology can do for them, and eventually even modify resource allocations in favourable ways. In the end, however, concludes Pacey, it is not necessarily the

idealistic blueprint that gets adopted, and it is therefore important to understand and initiate processes for social improvement.

In Chapter IX, Hans Liepmann discusses this vast, complex engine of technology and how it cannot run without an army of engineers, particularly those working at the leading edge of technology. He begins by noting how we become complacent, accepting the daily uses of technology for transport, communication, life support etc. Engineers are often seen as ‘assemblers’ of current knowledge into useful machines by applying well known recipes: but Liepmann points out that this is like describing a pianist as one who simply hits a set of keys according to a specified set of rules. Innovative engineers require as much imagination and intuition as those in any creative endeavour. Sometimes the engineer tackles problems which are not yet fully understood from first principles, as Narasimha also pointed out. Thus, when the wing of a huge aircraft like

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion ll 17

the Boeing 747 splits near the trailing edge while landing, it is successfully controlling the still ununderstood problem of turbulent separation. There are, of course, spectacular technological failures as well, such as those that occurred in the early history of the space shuttle or the Hubble telescope, but quite often such failures, Liepmann believes, are due to a breakdown in communications in the command structure of the project. Education in engineering should of course address the industry’s needs, but the problem is that it is not enough to meet current needs. In a world where technology is fast changing, the needs of a tomorrow where today’s problems are either forgotten or solved are also important. Lifelong learning is becoming essential. Specialisation is necessary, but an ensemble of specialists who constantly fight each other will be unproductive without leaders of breadth and depth and a touch of psychological understanding. Education, therefore, has to be able to nurture such leadership. What are the best ways of establishing links between academia and industry? Long-term exchange of leaders is virtually impossible, so the links have come from academic consultants in the industry and industrial visitors to academia. There are crucial differences between industry and academia—in time scales and in freedom of information exchange, for example. Academia has to provide a haven for brilliant oddballs, like the mathematicians Ramanujan and Weierstrass, or the brilliant aeronautical designer Kelly Johnson who ran a famous ‘skunk works’—although Liepmann fears that this is becoming increasingly difficult. As the disciplines one has to be familiar with multiply, the aim of cutting-edge technological education may not be to produce specialists as much as it is to produce people who are able to specialise. Liepmann also talks about the extent of creative engineering in mundane engineering problems and how necessary it is to be able to make quick, rough estimates of engineering parameters, even in a world increasingly dominated by computers. There is no unique way to teach engineering, if only because human beings are not standardised! Excellent professionals have emerged from those eager to build hardware even before the learning process is complete, as well as from those who are reluctant

18 M@ Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

to proceed before they know what they are doing! The education system must provide for this diversity, and not set upa rigid structure that does not appreciate the richness of the diverse skills required to run today’s or create tomorrow’s technology. This book begins by looking at the cultural factors that have influenced technology development, and ends by examining how technology can affect culture. In Chapter X, Kenneth Keniston, who has studied India’s recent software and information technology boom in detail, asks whether India’s cultures (note the plural) can survive the Information Age. India, as he says, is a ‘test case’, as it has preserved a pluralist tradition in culture,

language, tradition etc., for a long time. There is widespread fear of globalisation and of cultural imperialism (mainly AngloSaxon) spreading across the world. How these forces affect India—a country in which a foreign language like English is neyertheless not a strange tongue—are some of the issues tackled in this chapter. Keniston considers the danger of a largely American monoculture relegating other cultures to second place if not worse. On the other hand he also finds that Indians, despite all the many conflicts of the past and present, live more comfortably with multiple cultural identities than any other people on earth. So the Indian experience seems to suggest that global need not erase rootedness in one’s own particular culture.

India may indeed provide a model for the world, he thinks. At the other end of the cultural spectrum, however, is what Keniston calls ‘exclusive cultural nationalism’—jihad, antiCommunist witch-hunts, Soviet efforts to extirpate ‘revisionists’ etc., often arising from a sense of one’s culture being under threat. Whether India will be able to preserve its plurality depends on how decisions are made—on technical issues such as localisation and standardisation of software for Indian languages. Otherwise the gap between the empowered and the powerless will grow, and cultural nationalism may take over.

The Dynamics of Technology Creation and Diffusion lM 19

Keniston notes that the initiatives that need to be taken on Indian languages are unlikely to come from the big companies focussing on export, but rather from small, smart, backstreet operators, of the kind that he has encountered in

his travels across India. A great deal will also depend on the commitment to cultural diversity among India’s gifted technologists, entrepreneurs and government officials. Indian governments, at the centre and in the states, will have to use their authority and economic power to ensure that the required tasks are carried out. But the Information Age will not necessarily solve the traditional problems of mankind any more than telegraphy or electricity or the automobile did, unless the opportunities provided by new technologies are exploited by political will, depending on how they are perceived, shaped and deployed, and not by a blind reliance on the market.

As we conclude this volume, we should state that it has not been our objective to advocate one point of view, propagate one philosophy, or expound one theory for technology. In-

stead, we have attempted to show that technology is a mighty engine whose working has been shaped by political, economic, social and cultural forces of the world, within each country and during each period, and that technology in turn has always been and is currently influencing the politics, economics, sociology and culture of the world. Engineering has many faces, and engineers are creative, idealistic, passionate, or

compromising in what they do, like other creative people. They have, for a greater part of the time, remained in the background, in spite of the spectacular ways in which they have altered, or created, the world we live in and the way we live. It is our hope that the essays in this book will help the reader see engineering as a rich and complex force, rendered less invisible and more understandable by the analyses and accounts presented here.

20 M@ Roddam Narasimha, J. Srinivasan and S.K. Biswas

Notes AND REFERENCES

1.

2. 3.

4.

We thank all the contributors for their extraordinary patience while the present volume was taking shape over the years. We are also grateful to Ms K. Nagarathna, who during this rather long period of gestation of the book kept careful track of the work involved in the preparation of the scripts, and has been of immense help in putting the volume together and in preparing the index. We also thank Ms Pushpa Raju for her secretarial assistance in the early years of this project. See for example: Technology and Economics. 1991. National Academy Press. Papers commemorating Ralph Landau’s service to the National Academy of Engineering. W.G. Vincenti, 1990, What Engineers Know and How They Know It, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. D.R. Headrick, 1981, The Tools of Empire, London: Oxford University Press. We mention here only a few references that supplement the points made in this volume. The way that an engineering design actually emerges—and a view of designing as a social process—is described in specific cases by L.L. Bucciarelli, 1996, Designing Engineers, Cambridge: MIT Press. Another interesting account that particularly examines the part played by failures is by H. Petroski, 1994, Design Paradigms, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Other interesting accounts of different aspects of engineering and technology will be found in the following books: T.J. Allen, 1977, Managing the Flow of Technology, Cambridge: MIT Press. S.C. Florman,

1987, The Civilized Engineer,

St. Martin’s Press, New

York. S.C. Florman,

1976, The Existential Pleasures

of Engineering,

New

York: St. Martin’s Press. H.E.

5.

Sladovich,

(ed.), 1991, Engineering

as a Social

Enterprise,

Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. D.J. Boorstin, 1978, The Republic of Technology: Reflections on Our Future Community, New Delhi: Ambika Publications. J. Needham, 1971, Foreword in Science at the Cross-Roads, London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. Papers presented to the International Congress of the History of Science and Technology, London.

Technology in History: Case Studies and Concepts, circa 1700-2000 IAN INKSTER

PROLOGUE It would seem needlessly heroic to attempt a ‘History of Technology in essay form without forecasting a series of defensive shuffles. In the present climate of techno-scepticism, of self-conscious reflexion and generalised postmodernist doubt, a chaos of historical accounts is produced not only by historians, but also by alarge number of academic non-historians in the humanities, cultural studies and social sciences, whose productions only sometimes throw light on the proper reaches of the contemporary historical domain.! Within the more modernist tradition a host of new influences have been admitted into the sub-field of the history of technology. These include perspectives or theses emerging from the hissociology of technological systems and economic and social from stem tory. It may be predicted that future influences might nal findings in science and technology policy studies and institutio important economics—areas which do throw light especially upon culture historical themes like the role of the state, of enterprise whereby and of global or external factors in the historical process itself, and technology has become both more advanced in and of trajectories of more central to the economic progress and social advanced industrial systems.” be unfamiliar to the general Some of the terms used in this essay that may at the end of the chapter. given y glossar the in ned explai are reader

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Such influences external to professional ‘history may be evidenced in the modern turnaround from heroic breakthroughs and engineering accounts, towards the study of incrementalism, transfer and diffusion, chance and contingency. However, more specifically, the contemporary search for new modes of technological advancement, for a rapprochement between the public and the private sectors, exhibits an increased willingness to view technological systems as indirectly incorporative of a range of social institutions and power relations. Within what might be identified as a postmodernist agenda, problems revolve around the very salience of goals and interpretations, pitfalls of historicism and criticisms of the procedures used in the construction of historical accounts. Technology is problematic, and its instrumental progress may not be equated with its cultural progress. Modernist and postmodernist analysts may continue to talk past one another as a matter of (dis)course, but this does not, at present, preclude the construction of empirically-based accounts. The history of technology is actually up for grabs. There is much in postmodernism and its associated relativism which is good agenda, but little yet that is credenda. If there is no such thing as ‘technology in itself’ (Braudel 1981), then the task of the historian becomes very complicated, and it is at all times threatened by the loss of purpose as well as subject!? By focussing on the apparent historical dynamics that link technology, institutions and industrial transformation from the late 18th century to the present time, this essay sidesteps several issues associated with forays into abnormal discourse. For this, certain demarcations are required. Technologies are not always clearly differentiated from ‘institutions’. Technological systems in the sense used by Thomas Hughes and others embrace far more than the machines and processes which may lie at their core.® Finally, for the historian whose main concern is with the growth and welfare of national systems (discussed ahead), the incremental improvement and adaptation of technique may be of greater importance in understanding systematic success than the more visible and exciting breakthroughs in technique, identified as the creative contributions of great men.° Great men of course have existed and exerted influence, but two points

Technology in History m 23

must be made here. First, almost by definition, system-shifting technological breakthroughs must require incremental technique adaptations and responses (both strictly technical as well as institutional), allowing adoption through time and space; historically, this often involved the activities of many individuals located elsewhere within the social and technological system.’ Second, any failure to acknowledge the significance of incrementalism, adaptation and adjustment also fails to answer a question of the form: Why did Western technology succeed in transforming the industrial structure of later 19th-century Japan but not that of 19th-century China? This sort of question involves an even more general problematique.

INTRODUCTION——PARADIGMS LOST ‘In the realm of technology, co-extensive with the whole of history, there is no single onward movement, but many actions and reactions, many changes of gear’. Fernand Braudel, 1979

Braudel’s method is one way of forecasting the importance of large systems, of response, transfers and reversals in the history of technolto grasp ogy. This may lead to the claim that specialist work is unable human of the true nettle. Thus, ‘the history of technology is that technolhistory in all its diversity. That is why specialist historians of we Here hands’.* their in entirely it grasp to manage ogy hardly ever Braudel in cannot ‘grasp’ the history of technology, but we can follow emphasis on refusing any technological determinism through our change. the social/cultural and institutional imperatives of technological that of (e.g., rmation transfo national of s instance In several important gical change 18th-century Britain or later 19th-century Japan), technolo process. wider a within ism mechan vital a seems to have acted as ntal fundame the as change gical Accounts which centre upon technolo remain do change system cause of truly significant socio-economic unconvincing’ despite recent attempts.

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Although doubts have been cast upon the traditional tasks and approaches of historians from the outside, within the profession there still remains some consensus on the character of the big questions. One of these is of such importance and magnitude as to constitute an entire problematique in itself. What in the past has determined or otherwise influenced the present division of the world into rich and poor nations? The historiography relating to this question is difficult to define and relate, for few examples of very distinguished scholarship have been explicity constructed around this blatant query. With reservations then, a liberal-conventional historiography is identifiable, in which the answer to our query is sought in the isolation of specific ‘factors’ operating in various locations. The answer is based on the assumption that economic development originates in certain advantaged areas and will spread outwards into areas of similar factorial disposition, but will not originate in, or spread to, nations or areas whose factorial character is decidedly other than those of the regions of origin. Here ‘nations’ are emphasised as building blocks, especially where the activity of the state and the public sector appears to be of great importance, either in establishing innovative environments in which information flows take place and in which risks may be calculated, or through the direct interventions required by ‘follower’ nations as they deliberately attempt to create the institutional, attitudinal and other ‘factors’ necessary to the diffusion or catch-up process. So, this is a very big historiography, allowing for a great variety of perspectives, encompassing a range of attitudes or theses with regard to markets versus states, physical investments as against human capital formation, culture as against information and so on. For instance, the diverse work of those historians who stress basic similarities between, Japan and Europe may be important in the development of this metaperspective on modern world history. The second and much smaller perspective, that of liberal radicalism, admits much of this but points to such difficult cases as 18th-century China (or China after the 13th century), 19th-century France, 20th-century Japan or today’s Kast Asian nations as apparent exceptions that cannot easily prove the rules of the more dominant approach. Here the emphasis is on barriers,!! which

Technology in History

@ 25

may be as local and traditional, or dynamic and exogenous as any ‘positive factors’ in explaining the overall patterns of industrial and economic development, either through a particular period or at any cut-off point in history. Development occurs where barriers to change are at their weakest or lowest, and such barriers may be created or strengthened in the very process of industrialisation itself. Although many types of barrier might be addressed, here we suggest a threefold typology. Some barriers exist within those areas which ‘fail’ to develop industrially. However, whether, ‘cultural features’ for instance will inhibit a planned programme of development will largely depend on the exact character and chronology of the external institutional or technological intrusions, upon the social status of the agents of change and so on. That is, ‘industrial success’ has not only one character but many; indigenous cultural reaction (not just that of the common folk but of the ‘elite’ too) will be greater the more the new techniques, ideas or institutions embrace strange pursuits—a transplanted textile industry will take root more easily than a large steel plant. A second set of barriers are those which emerge at the other end of the transformation process, i.e., within the core industrialisers themselves. As development in the leader nations progresses, so do the original institutions and technologies of growth and change mature, become increasingly formalised, interrelated and sophisticated, decreasingly applicable to a basic range of industries, to a smaller scale of demand, to cruder physical inputs, to less trained labour, and so on. That is, with time, what is available as the best or better practices at the core are no longer similar to the original techniques of production associated with earlier industrial transformation at the core. Primarily, the internal logic of industrialisation involves a significant change in the imperatives of technology, i.e., in its capital intensity, optimum scales of output, raw material demands, management requirements and skills necessary for erection, repair, maintenance etc. In simple form,

the technical imperatives of the English cotton industry in the 1880s were not those of the 1780s. Sustained development has, thus, always involved a series of institutional and other adjustments along with changing technical imperatives within a system

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through time. Localised dynamics involving a greater interrelationship of institutions, social and power shifts and massive accumulations of both formal and informal knowledge, mean that barriers are created within the core industrialisers which increasingly inhibit the spread of relevant and advanced technology to potential follower nations. Within this perspective, the process of late development, given a particular global technological paradigm”, becomes increasingly problematic with time. One prediction might be that a successful following will involve a large, concentrated effort, in which the requirements of the state will serve to force-draft industrial development at costs which could never be faced or absorbed by the private sector agents in late-developing nations.” Our third type of barrier centres on the mechanisms which inhibit the actual transfer of industrial development from one area, core or group of nations to another. Historically, both ideas and machines have been transferred by a great variety of mechanisms, ranging from the active agency of individuals or migrant groups to the legal provisions of the international patent system, a subject discussed at greater length ahead. However, transfer mechanisms have changed quite drastically between the time of early Western-based industrialisation and the present time,’ particularly at sites located outside the nation itself (e.g., in the transnational corporation, in global capital markets or in international agencies). A number of newer transfer barriers have emerged, associated with problems of information search and capture, and strategic global political constraints. The thesis of radical liberalism as summarised here in its strong form is that such barriers sufficiently ‘explain’ the present global maldistribution of wealth, health and welfare. A typical historical claim would thus read: However appropriate or vigorous the ‘culture’ of 19th-century China might have been, industrialisation could not succeed there because of the active operation of barriers to development of one or the other of the types schematised earlier.® Perhaps it is obvious that problems abound. Both historiographies suffer from some lack of symmetry. That is, a strong interpretation should perhaps exhibit a symmetry of argument for both ‘failure’ stories and ‘success’ stories. If higher

Technology in History m 27

rates of investment are a satisfactory explanation of Japan’s

high rate of industrial growth in the 1960s and 1970s, then the nations failing to grow in that period should at least exhibit significantly lower rates of investment.” If ‘culture’ is to be identified as the barrier to development in 19th-century India (one position of liberal-conventional historians), then so too must ‘culture’ appear as an explanation of success in yesterday’s Japan or today’s South Korea. A few of the most interesting socio-cultural approaches have indeed attempted to satisfy the symmetry condition; Morishima’s argument about the central importance of neo-Confucianism in explaining Japan’s industrial and technological transfer is matched by an account of the inhibiting impact on China of a more traditional Confucianism. Issues and demarcations of this sort are of central concern in the history of technology. Much of conventional history of science and technology focusses on sites of creativity and the character of the agents of change within them, and often seems to take the liberal-conventional perspective as read. Links are forged between the Protestant ethic, the rise of competitive individualism, critical empirical investigations (amidst a modernist ethos), and the subsequent rise of a new industrial culture based on new technologies. A more radical approach might be to argue that the diffusion and transfer of technology from one site to another and by means of varying agencies has at all times been problematic and a possible key in the understanding of the present locus of development, R&D resources, technical creativity etc. As technology transfer normally fails due to a variety of dynamic barriers and resistances (mentioned earlier), so too the history of technology is a history of power, of institutions and of transferred perceptions and procedures as much as of creativity or originality. This approach gives some direction to generalisations similar to Braudel’s. Furthermore, even within core and successful industrialisers, sustained development (i.e., ultimate ‘victories’) might have been due, not to the inevitable but application of initial and greatly innovative breakthroughs, resistances or to the relative absence of socio-cultural barriers to technological change within the core systems. Thus, the study within of the differential patterns or degrees of resistances even

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advanced systems might be visualised as an important component of an emerging liberal—radical perspective in the history of technology."

PROGRESS AND FAILURE: AGENCY AND SITES OF ENDEAVOUR Although late 20th-century scepticism about the role of government has tended to obscure the historical record,” there is clear evidence that in the arena of technological change broadly defined, the state has, at times, been essential to the success of nations. We are not suggesting that government intervention in such areas as technological search and purchase, the setting-up of model factories, the employment of skilled foreign labour or the encouragement and settlement of migrant groups and refugees was all accomplished smoothly, morally or without very significant costs. We are not suggesting either that the wider

ranging interventions of the state (from tariff protection to the printing of money) directly promoted cost-effective industrial production,” but costs and benefits do have to be estimated against the background of reasonable counter-factual alternatives. Perfect markets and a price system which effectively allocates the factors of production rarely exist within nations of relative economic backwardness. In such instances key actors may

not even

recognise

(or may

refuse

to recognise)

the

categories and juxtapositions required of the notion ‘State versus Markets’. Rather, the prevailing actors’ categories may juxtapose the as yet unknown costs of industrial modernisation against the present and certain fears of war, imperialism and aggressive, commercial expansionism. Here we simply maintain that the history of technology often requires further acknowledgment of the environmental and interventionist activities of the state. In the skilling and training of key workers, the reform of key institutions (including those relating to the securing of new forms of property rights, essential to the development of markets) and the construction of large infrastructures (especially railways, bridges, roads, lighthouses and tramways and other transport systems), the state was an essential

Technology in History Ml 29

agent of technology transfer and industrialisation. and related demands of key ministries justified an costs and difficulties that could not be tolerated by dent private sector agency. Furthermore, in many

The military escalation of any indepencases of fol-

lower nations, the markets for capital, labour and information

were ill-formed and government interventions laid the foundations for more efficient private sector performances at a later phase ofthe industrialisation process. Thus, the Russian industry of the 1890s was clearly dominated by statist infrastructural and other activities, but the measurable success of the economy in the years have immediately prior to the First World War (1914-18) seems to been primarily a result of the private enterprise sector.” to This discussion serves as an appropriate background n, isatio the examination of types of technological modern titled especially in terms of agency and site. The section s suggest ‘Wellsprings: The Chaos of the 18th Century’ briefly ard, haphaz that technological advance during this century was dge and knowle both of rs transfe nt freque with ted was associa ic sporad technique through a variety of individualised, logical agencies, and that the sites of major techno common breakthroughs illustrated little in the way of obvious change ogical technol of agents the whole the characteristics. On

were informal. were individuals, and the sites of their activities British industrial The section on the technological aspects of the England) was the revolution shows that Britain (in particular,

century, for here principal beneficiary of the chaos of the 18th were at their the barriers to technical innovation or diffusion relatively nations in s agencie statist weakest. Where powerful of process the te instiga could que backward in industrial techni and culture al artisan vibrant the technology transfer, it was d which together relative social mobility and openness of Englan undergirded state British the forged net benefits. Clearly, for the nment enviro an d provide competitive individualism and on section the In .*4 ideology emergence of an aggressive liberal to y abruptl rather turn we technology and late industrialisation the of half last the during the phenomena of late development which saw the industrial 19th century during a great conjunction Russia together with rise of North America,” Germany and . Meiji Japan.”* A major emulative, ‘toe-hold’ developments in

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contributing factor was the great acceleration in the sheer number of technology transfers and a multiplication of mechanisms for the movement of ideas, individuals and machines. Such technology transfer was strongly associated with the agency of the ‘follower’ state as it attempted to overcome the increasing barriers to industrialisation associated with changing technical imperatives (discussed earlier). Increasingly, the sites of technical change had become formalised in universities and polytechnics, in government ministries and departments and in new extensions of the state like patent systems or bureaux of acclimatisation, translation, standards and adulteration, copyright, plant industries and machine selection, testing and experimentation. With particular reference to China and India, the section on colonialism and mechanisms of

technology transfer focusses on the impact of colonialism in the century following the Crimea. Here the major agency of technological modernisation was the colonial state (in the case of India) or foreign communities in treaty ports, and European and American engineers, traders and diplomats (in the case of China). In one manner or another, the sites of endeavour were established

outside the indigenous institutions and locations, and the technology transfer mechanisms of colonialism appear to have been effective in initiating transfer processes while blocking or inhibiting the diffusion of modernised technologies or the completion of longterm projects. Very briefly, the section on technology and east Asia analyses the mechanisms of technology transformation in the modern climacteric since circa 1970—73.27 The perhaps unexpected industrial and technological emergence of East Asia has provoked more immediate debates as to site and agency. Ifthe comparative importance of the ‘State’ and the ‘Market’ often generate more heat than light amongst historians, this is nothing compared to the emotions raised in contemporary discussions concerning the economic rise of the Pacific.

WELLSPRINGS—THE CHAOS OF THE 18TH CENTURY At first thought it seems only reasonable to conclude that the nations which most successfully embarked on the process

Technology in History M@ 31

of industrialisation during the 18th century were also the ones most advanced in technique and its application. However, the frequency of knowledge and technology transfers between the nations of the 18th century, especially within Europe, meant that locations of industrialisation were by no means always locations of the most advanced technique or of the most vibrant technical innovations. Evidence from before the industrial revolution suggests that technology is never simply a collection of tools and machines. Rather, technology is these things plus the institutions and procedures which allows the experience and skills of diverse individuals to be brought together ‘be they operatives, craftsmen or managers’.”* The haphazard movements of key individuals and groups meant that neither the dictates of the state nor wars between nations could beat the transfer process.” Thus, French control over Spain did not stem the flow of technologies southwards, despite the official restrictions imposed by Bourbon rulers. The majority of the 65,000 French settlers in Spain were and artisans and mechanics carrying a stock of expertise experience into the nation’s woollen, glass, iron, gunpowder, on paper and silk industries. Similarly, formal restrictions Kay the export of skills from Britain did not prevent John France, from relocating himself and his spinning machinery to already machinery utilising by business where he commenced Holker.*° ohn J by England of smuggled out cted. The War could certainly be a stimulant in ways unexpe products effectiveness of the Continental System, by which many of Swiss were blocked off, encouraged the movement to satisfy the handspinners and machine weavers into Alsace Trebilcok has demands of Mulhouse for skilled workers. As Wilkinson and observed, despite war ‘Cockerill in Aachen, like rial world, moving Baildon in Silesia, was a citizen of an indust scattered across easily between the manufacturing centres Europe’. a major cause of Significantly, war and the fear of war was the state, a feature of the quickening of transfers instigated by case of Russia. The the 18th century best exemplified in the as a period of statePetrine Era (1672-1725), well known dominated by military was tion, instigated wholesale westernisa

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needs.” The fear of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire, later of Poland, drove the state to employ foreign artillerymen, engineers, shipwrights, mathematicians, and navigation instructors. State policy on technology transfer included a range of inducements, from the granting of monopolies to the guarantee of prices and the preferential purchase of government or public assets. The attempt to get Frenchman John Law to Russia in 1721 involved offers of the entitlement to the status of prince, ownership of 2,000 peasant households and the right to build an entire township populated with foreign artisans and craftsmen.*? Whilst there may have existed some 50 or so foreign manufacturers of some significance in Russia during the 17th century, by 1730 there were no enterprises in the mining regions of the Urals which did not owe much to foreign enterprise, especially that of Scandinavian or German origin.** With the encouragement of Peter the Great and the transfer of government mines at Neviansky to private hands in the early 1700s, there was a general spread of modernised ironworks, including the foreign entrepreneurial establishments of John Henning at Olonets and Ekaterinburg. Between 1719 and 1782 around 150 works were founded. British, Dutch, French and German experts flooded Russia, to join modernising influences flowing through the Ukraine. Contemporaries recognised the great importance of skill migration. With reference to the many attempts to encourage foreign settlement in Russia after the time of Peter, one mid18th century commentator generalised that ‘the establishment of the European arts and sciences in Russia, by means of commerce, was the aim proposed by those sovereigns who invited strangers to people their dominions’.** Perhaps about 30,000 migrated to Russia from Germany alone, in the seven years following Catherine’s Manifesto of J uly 1763.°° Such manifestoes and associated procedures and regulations were distributed throughout Europe and were activated through full-time French, Swiss and Belgian agents. By the 1760s, special privileges were designed for skilled migrants, including citizenship, freedom of worship, membership of guilds, land awards and so on. Many skilled migrants were also assisted through payment of travel costs. Special favour was given to foreigners ‘who undertake to build factories and plants’ with special loans allocated to ‘factories

Technology in History M 33

such as have not yet been built in Russia’.*’” More advanced nations attracted skilled groups without recourse to such extreme measures, although even here the nature of contrived inducements should be understood (see the section on the technological aspects of the British industrial revolution). In describing his European trip of 1685, Bishop Burnet recalled how ‘so many exiles and outlawed persons were scattered up and down the towns of Holland and other provinces’. By the middle of the 18th century Englishmen were indeed complaining of how Holland was serving as a principal receptor of migratory talent: It was of less importance to the State to have the most famous and most excellent workmen, than to acquire new men who brought into its trade values, which before were in the trade of other nations: such is still and ever will be the policy and interest of Holland.*

But, in fact, England itself was the greatest beneficiary of skill migration and associated technology transfers, and the phenomenon was common throughout Europe. Thus, in 1751, the mechanic Jean Wassiege of Liege was constructing Germany’s first steam engine, used for a lead mine, and in the same year Englishman John Holker was establishing a modernised cotton mill at Rouen. Of 86 skilled artisan employees at the Rouen works in 1754, the most important positions were held by 20

skilled British workers. One such worker was Michael Alcock, a metal-worker, who from the 1780s acted as a French recruiting

agent for the metal industries.*® Such instances may be itemised almost indefinitely. Although random elements as well as particular local traditions clearly played their part, there does seem to have been some relationship between the direct participation of the state in technology modernisation and the degree of relative economic backwardness. Technique was created in and distributed to nations such as Britain or Holland because of their natural and achieved advantages. As one European observer claimed in 1748, the United Provinces acted as a magnet because of the attraction of the power of the large cities and civic freedoms:

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its Populousness; its Secure, as well as commodious situation; the Lowness of Interest and Duties paid there; its Naval strengths for protecting Trade; the Carefulness and Exactness of its Merchants; the Bank of Amsterdam; its Superiority in the East-Indies; and the exemplary Punish-

ment inflicted on Robbers, Cheats and Bankrupts.”° In the 18th century as in other times, development begat development and centres of industrial and technological excellence grew when they attracted skills, initiative, acumen and other assets from elsewhere. However, in less advanced nations it was the government dockyards, arsenals, armaments and metallurgy and mining concerns which harboured and utilised advanced technique. Such technologies were quick to transfer but normally slow to diffuse into the economic hinterlands. Military and arsenal technology was relatively capital intensive, yielded high initial running costs, involved expensive (because of their scarcity) skilled workers and demanded a long period of gestation between instruction and final production. In such cases, technological imperatives acted as principal barriers to industrialisation through technology transfer. Transfer mechanisms abounded in the 18th century, but only in some forward locations did cumulative technological progress occur.

AND THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED: TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE BRITISH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION There was seemingly no lack of key technological innovations in 18th-century Britain. The list is familiar to historians, and to schoolchildren with careful teachers and good memories: Abraham Darby’s coke smelting (1709), Newcomen’s pumping engine (1712), Kay’s ‘flying shuttle’ (1733), Ward’s sulphuric acid process (1736), Roebuck’s lead chamber process (1746), Paul’s carding machine (1748), Huntsman’s steel-making (1749), Bakewell’s stockbreeding (1760), Hargreave’s jenny (1764), Watt’s steam engine (separate condenser, 1769), Arkwright’s waterframe (1769), Ramsden’s lathe (1770), Wilkinson’s boring device (1774), Watt’s

Technology in History m 35

improved steam engine (1776), Crompton’s ‘mule’ (1779), Hornblower’s compound engine (1780), Watt’s ‘parallel motion’ (1782), Tull’s geared seed drill (1782), Cort’s puddling process (1779), Watt’s rotary motion (1781), Cartwright’s powerloom (1785), Murdoch’s steam carriage (1786), Wilkinson’s iron boat

(1787), Macadam’s and Telford’s improved road building technologies (1788-95), Cartwright’s wool-combing machine (1790), Bramah’s hydraulic press (1795), Maudslay’s carriage lathe (1797), Tenant’s chlorine bleaching (1797), Trevithick’s high pressure steam engine (1800), Maudslay’s screw-cutting lathe (1800).*?

One or two points may be noted at the outset. First, it appears that several significant ‘breakthroughs’ occurred long before any associated industrial development. Second, and related, the dates itemised above are merely those of known or hazarded first recognisable invention, and exclude the subsequent innovational activity of either originators or emulators. For example, Newcomen’s pumping engine was first working in 1712, but was not put to use until the 1720s; Ramsden’s lathe of 1770 made little real impact until the Maudslay improvements of the 1790s; Cort’s puddling was first achieved around 1779, but not put to use commercially until the second decade of the next century. Theories of ‘lag’ are abundant enough. For instance, it may be noted that Crompton’s powerloom was first patented in 1786-88, but its adoption seems to have depended on distinct investment booms during 1823-25 and 1832-34, so that by 1833 there were close to 100,000 powerlooms in operation. However, we should hesitate to plunge too quickly into the obvious, and note factors other than demand or simple supply features such as the rate of investment. Eighteenth-century Britain also witnessed a series of innovations of another sort, to which names of particular ‘inventors’ may not so readily be attached. The list could include the increased momentum of parliamentary enclosure (1730), the fivefold increase in turnpike road mileage (1750-70), the completion of the Bridgewater Canal in 1761 at an approximate cost of £250,000, at least one hundred times the cost of an Arkwright factory at the end of the century; the spread of

stagecoaches during the 1780s and the General Enclosure Act of 1801. Such ‘institutional innovations’ may well have helped

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determine the conditions of both demand and supply which influenced the genesis of technical invention, its application and diffusion and the transfer of technique to Britain from other nations. There is good reason to argue, indeed, that institutional innovation rather than the relative abundance of capital was the major factor influencing technical change as well as ensuring that Britain became the greatest beneficiary of the chaos of technology transfers. Large amounts of fixed capital were rarely required for manufacturing industries prior to the 1830s,

new techniques could be brought into production as part of replacement. and conversion investment, and most fixed capital investment occurred outside of the new manufactures, in canals, mines and roads—by 1790 at least £1.5 million had been spent on the canal system alone. In most cases capital was probably not a constraint on technical change and its implementation, and therefore not the major determinant of the character and trajectory of technological progress in 18thcentury Britain.*” Contemporaries pointed to other, institutional features of 18thcentury Britain such as the strength of its artisanal and urban cultures, its relative openness and freedom from persecutions,

and the associated security of property and income—political and sociological characteristics increasingly acknowledged by modern economic historians of this period.* As David Hume observed in one of his most succinct and brilliant essays, the commercial openness of Britain brought more than the simple mercantilist reward of revenue or gold, for it introduced into Britain a challenge and promoted a response.‘ As a commentator on the London trades of the mid-century wrote, no sooner did commercial competition occur ‘than the Arts and Sciences began to revive and polished us out of our domestic simplicity and ignorance’.* The commercial city became a place of social experiment and competitive individualism. Entering the city of Birmingham in 1741, William Hutton proclaimed that individuals there possessed ‘a vivacity I have never beheld; I had been among dreamers, but now I saw men awake’.*® Wide-ranging institutional innovations, commercial openness and a diverse urbanism might have been at the core of Britain’s technological

Technology in History

37

advantage, but less systematic torces cannot be ignored. Random shocks or stimulants’? may have been of great importance in invoking any or all of these seemingly ‘core’ features of 18th-century Britain. Thus, in the case of London as an emporium of social change and experiment, we might note the stimulative impacts of such long-term forces (peculiar to the locale) as the impact of Henry VIII’s court on the West End, the impact of the French wars on London as a centre of power, the extended effects of the conversion of erstwhile religious property to civic and commercial uses and the consequent rise of a new aristocracy and the livery companies; to these we could add the better known and fairly direct impact of the great fire of 1666 and the subsequent emergence of a restored metropolis. We could postulate that such varied local and historical events and processes created a shift in the role of the leading English city away from that which was essentially ‘orthogenetic’ (i.e., the elaboration of what is already existent) to that which was ‘heterogenetic’ (involving the generation of unorthodox and original modes of thought, new institutional forms or spatial arrangements).** Whatever may have been the complex of forces behind the newer institutions and motivations, the result in terms of a relatively rapid closing of social distances was perceived by many contemporary observers. As Thomas Forster put it in 1767:

In England the several ranks of men slide into each other almost imperceptibly, and a spirit of equality runs through every part of the constitution. Hence arises a strong emulation in all the several stations and conditions to vie with each other; and a perpetual restless ambition in each of the inferior ranks to raise themselves to the level of those immediately above them.”

This sounds like a recipe for technological success. Others mme accepted the advantages of Britain but advocated some progra

ation of of state intervention in order to promote an acceler

in 1757 change in agricultural and industrial techniques. Thus, e of advocat great a hwayte, the neo-mercantilist Malachy Postlet for mme progra nt six-poi a ed agricultural improvement, suggest

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official policy relating to increases in efficiency. The British state should establish factories overseas, which. would eventually increase trade; promote the diffusion of existing better agrarian technologies in order to bring down the costs of industrial labour; regulate industrial skilling or training through apprenticeship and by reduction of the power of the guilds; induce the immigration of foreign skill in all cases where ‘workmen have been molested in their liberties, fortunes and religion’; improve rewards to all ‘inventions tending to abridge or ease the labour of men’, and generally promote ‘rivalship’ within the nation whilst inhibiting the movement of skills and machines to other countries. Thus, any foreigners allowed to lodge patents within Britain ‘ought to be obliged to bring from abroad, and maintain, a certain number of foreign workmen, and likewise take a certain number of national apprentices’. It is very noteworthy that Postlethwayte focussed entirely on improvements in those institutions which were already undergoing significant changes throughout the 18th century.*! We could now suggest that institutional innovation over a long swing promoted the industrial revolution of the 19th century, through forging a conjunction of (a) key inventions and innovations, (b) inward technology transfers, and (c) incremental technical improvements, a conjunction embracing at least the last three decades of the 18th century. A well established argument is that the relatively short social distances directly stimulated key inventive activity, item (a) above. Musson and Robinson have done more than any other historians to document the networks and sites within which key inventions occurred.” However, summarised that:

as early as 1948, T.S. Ashton

There was much coming and going between the laboratory and the workshop.... Inventors, contrivers, industrialists,

and entrepreneurs—it is not easy to distinguish one from another at a period of rapid change—came from every social class and from all parts of the country... Clergymen and parsons, including Edmund Cartwright and Joseph

Dawson, forsook the cure of souls to find out more efficient

ways of weaving cloth and smelting iron.... Scholars turned

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from the humanities to physical science, and some from physical science to technology.™ Even earlier, H.L. Beales had argued that, for primarily social or institutional reasons in England ‘new inventions were, so to speak, in the air, the environment was favourable to industrial progress’.** Our present insistence on the importance of inward technology transfers and on the multitude of incremental advances which were in most (but not all) cases necessarily associated with the application and diffusion (often via cost-reducing improvement) of key new technologies, means that we must push the ‘institutionalist’ argument a little further. Inward transfers of technique to Britain meant that by the end of the century there existed a vibrant, hybrid technological culture, the immediate backdrop to the technical applications associated with the first industrial revolution. The earlier years of the century were characterised by an open, two-way flow of specific techniques between Europe and Britain, with the latter gaining disproportionately from the permanent settlement of French Huguenot, Dutch and German migrants. While technicians brought skills, the foreign intellectuals and savants such as Desaguliers (1683-1744), settled in England, kept in constant touch with European academics and translated the new works of continental engineers. Such connections not only carried specific knowledge, but were also important in the spreading of foreign language sources, as well as in the founding of institutions (e.g., the German mathematician John Miller at Woolwich Academy from 1741). Although such technology and related transfers were undoubtedly encouraged by the greater freedoms and opportunities of 18thcentury England (mentioned earlier), they were also encouraged by deliberate practices of the British state. An enormous amount of time was spent by the British government on legislation concerning agricultural improvement, navigation and the development of harbours, rivers, turnpike roads and canals; of over 3,000 private and public acts of the 1740s to 1760s, 20 per cent were for turnpike schemes alone.” The British state was also involved in the stimulation of colonial technology transfers. In 1749, for instance, the

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Parliament passed an act, exempting from duty, all raw silk which was certified to be the product of Georgia or Carolina. A bounty was also offered for the production of spun silk and an Italian, G. Ortolengi, was hired to proceed to Georgia to instruct the colonists in the Italian methods of sericulture and silk throwing. In 1761, the London Society of Arts offered additional premiums for the production of good quality American cocoons. Under Italian methods, such stimuli led to a filature complex for reeling, doubling, cleaning and twisting.” Perhaps the advantages enjoyed by Britain in terms of inward technology transfers are best illustrated in the case of skills migration, and particularly so in the example of later French migrations to London and elsewhere. Concentrating here on inputs to technological innovation, we can devise two new analytical categories labelled ‘channels of induction’ and ‘paths of acceptance’. The distinction is offered on the grounds that the encouragement of skills migration is of little use if the migrants are not socially settled and accepted, if their skills are not subsequently utilised in the new environment. With reference to the earlier official encouragement of French religious refugees, the ‘channels of induction’ included at the least: Charles II’s proclamation of 1681 offering England asa place of refuge, voluntary house-to-house collections in aid of settlement, the utilisation of the funds of the Civil List and 18th-century parliamentary grants, the establishment of soup kitchens and so on.” The many ‘paths of acceptance’ for migrants included the award of rights to insurance of property, the lodging of patents, admittance to the livery companies, positions within the charity industries (from factory schools to poor relief), universal matriculation, and entry into the leadership of innumerable mathematical and scientific associations. The marks of success and acceptance of new skills were clear enough—intermarriage, tremendous social mobility into brokerage, banking, warehousing, merchandising and silk manufacture. From the early 18th century, the naturalisation of Huguenots occurred in local Quarter Session courts of law, often following a period of English apprenticeship and preluding the establishment, by such individuals, of independent business enterprises. Clearly, in

Technology in History m 41

the case of Britain, the direct activity of the state, together with the local impacts of broader social forces combined in assisting, if not determining, the assimilation and utilisation

of the varied technical and commercial skills of the French immigrants.® Finally, British social institutions encouraged a long-term process of technological improvement, of incremental adjustments to key inventions. Nowhere else within 18th-century Europe was technological investigation and experiment so open to the talents and needs of such a large cross-section of the population.®® This might be most concisely indicated in the patent data for the last decade of the century. Over 600 patentees may be identified for the 1790s, representing much if not the great bulk of the incremental improvements surrounding early industrial revolution techniques; more than 50 per cent of such patents were very directly concerned with the improvement of the new machinofacture, from the generation and conversion of motive power, through the industrial processing of raw materials to the invention of new machine tools and the development of new manufacturing chemical processes.™ Of the patentees, the majority were either skilled artisans or new manufacturers and engineers, many of whose backgrounds would have included an apprenticeship to the trades. Thus, incremental technical improvements originated at relatively humble levels of British society, a phenomenon key’s which might well lie at the explanatory hub of McClos in the read widesp was claim that ‘ordinary inventiveness 18th the of nations an British Economy’. Of all the Europe the in least the ed exhibit century, Britain was the one which ogitechnol lative accumu way of barriers to continuous and r mechacal change. Wars did not close the economy, transfe in any those than less nisms abounded, social distances were still were ues techniq contending European nation, the new fixed of s amount us relatively simple, not demanding enormo

mathematics, capital, deep knowledge of abstract science or ructure infrast ns or extensive transport and communicatio to support their diffusion and application.

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TRANSFERRED DEVELOPMENT?¢@: INDUSTRIALISATION

TECHNOLOGY

AND

LATE

The notion of ‘late development’ may act as a useful focussing device for study of the feasible relations of technology and the state during the industrialisation process, especially as it applies to nations such as Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Poland, Russia and Japan prior to 1914. Gerschenkron’s idea of ‘institutional substitutions —those devices specially constructed by the state or its agents in order to compensate for a lack of capital, knowledge and human resources—embraced all the institutions for settlement and internalisation of foreign techniques, from schools and research institutes to patent systems and standardisation regimes.® The disjunction and shock of technological modernisation during late industrialisation demanded a programme of damage limitation, involving risktaking and property rights, labour force discipline and policing, transport and communications, contracting and agency, as well as direct political control processes. Very few systems could manage the range and depth of institutional and political adaptation required of a wholesale process of technology transfer, and this, rather than a simple lack of capital or technical knowledge severely limited the spread of industrialisation during the great climacteric of the years 1870—1914.8 A major problem for late developers lay in the increased sophistication of technique in the earlier industrialisers, a potential decisive barrier to technological modernisation which required enormous efforts for it to be overcome. In core industrial nations such as Britain, France or the USA, much technological

innovation was already locked into specialised research and development departments within private enterprise, into a world of patent attorneys and technological competition, a phenomenon which, if anything, increased with the qualitative shifts in the advanced physical sciences around the 1890s, e.g., towards investigation of the properties of electrons and the composition of matter.“ From such corporations, universities, polytechnics and professional engineers, emerged a massive structure of

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technical innovation. Between 1877 and 1894, 343,581 patents were applied for in the USA, and 266,544 in Britain.® Such patents

were industrially specific and lodged throughout the industrial world: 28 per cent of all applications to the German patent system were lodged by foreigners, mainly in the fields of chemical industry, transportation, metallurgy and motive power.” Of all the patents lodged in Germany between 1877 and 1904, over 12,000 related directly to the chemical industry.°’ The technological systems of the core industrialisers had become sophisticated and institutionalised, depending upon the large numbers of graduates of the new universities, agricultural and engineering schools and polytechnics. Consequently, the character of technical transformation in late developers took on an increasingly institutionalised form as elites in relatively backward nations attempted to catch up with the leaders. Obviously, the extent of effort depended on the degree of relative economic and technical backwardness; Germany (especially after the unification of the early 1870s) modernised rapidly on the basis of advanced techniques, nations such as Russia, Poland and Hungary, on the other hand, with far greater difficulty and less complete success. Even further eastwards, technology transfer to industrialising Japan required an immense effort across almost all levels of social institution and at enormous financial and political cost.® Again, technological advancement in the nations most distant from the core industrialisers of the Atlantic system seems to have centred more on heavy industry, metallurgy and mining, and infrastructure construction, both as prerequisites or corequisites of manufacturing advancement and as immediate strategic requirements of the state. Perhaps of because of this, spurts of industrial growth and accelerations with associated technology transfer and adoption were especially very large development projects which combined mining, cases, metallurgical and railway schemes at their core. In several related of range such projects eventually generated a manufactures. Nevertheless, in most instances technological and great modernisation was in the end partial and enclavist, states nation efforts often led to the dualistic emergence within agrarian of of pockets of high technology set amidst hinterlands of the massive and commercial backwardness.” That is, much

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global technological achievement of the 1870-1914 climacteric served to shift the division between ‘success’ and ‘failure’ from one which occurred primarily between nations to one which continued between nations but now also occurred within nations as well. Thus, industrial dualism and aborted technological transformation was not merely a function of formal colonialism. As an example, the drive towards industrialisation in Poland between the early 1860s and later 1880s (during which time the nation was part of the Russian empire)” was centred on technology transfers into textiles and large-scale iron and steel foundries around Warsaw. A lot of technology transfer was through trade, with Britain providing some three-quarters of the machinery in textiles, a sector mostly operated within Poland by Germans and minority groups. The new metallurgical developments were characterised by largeness of scale and were situated around the then Silesian frontier. The principal steel works, absorbing the bulk of all iron produced, were either entirely foreign or joint partnerships with foreign companies like the Warsaw Steelworks Company and the other metallurgy and engineering works in that city, the Huta Foundry at Bunkowa (French) and the Huta Chlewicki, owned by the Societé des Forges et Hauts Fourneaux (Paris). By the mid-1880s the core metallurgy of south-west Poland and Warsaw had spawned a large manufacturing enterprise, producing equipment for new agricultural implement factories, breweries, flax, saw and sugar mills, railways, tramways and other large civil engineering schemes. Several such engineering works employed over 2,000 workers. A similar emphasis on largeness of scale was evidenced in south Hungary, the location of a massive metallurgical project dominated by the Privileged State Railway Company from 1855 onwards, founded by the Credit Lyonnais (France) and the Austrian government in the old province of Banat.” By the early 1880s this huge company employed nearly 80,000 people in several locations and across separate mining and metallurgy concerns in addition to a considerable railway establishment.” The Reschitza iron and steel works alone represented a great enclave of modernity and were founded on ironworks at Bogsan taken over from the government in 1869. By the 1880s, Reschitza combined technologies transferred from: the Societe Cockerill,

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a Bessemer department, a sophisticated rolling mill, German steam hammers and Austrian tensile testing and other equipment. It employed skilled workers from Germany, Italy and France as well as Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians, amongst whom the permanent workers were treated with special favour.“ Clearly, natural evolution within this project meant that techniques of production were of a far more roundabout and complex character than when the new Bessemer and Siemens technologies were being introduced in the 1860s. Thus, as early as the first years of the 1870s, the original core of transferred technique induced additional transfers of rolling mills, a machine factory, tool forge, bridge building department, steel foundry and new railways utilising the first Hungarian-manufactured locomotive (1873). To the mid-1890s the history of the company, and of Reschitza in particular, was one of constant accumulation, adjustment and rearrangement of increasingly massive proportions. Thus, in order to meet the increased demand for Martin steel during 1896, the steel works introduced three new Bessemer converters, new 20-ton Siemens-Martin hearths and enlarged the crucible steel plant. Such changes were serviced by two newly erected locomotive casting cranes, four hydraulic cranes and two locomotive cranes powered by electricity.” Such an example seems to highlight the significance of changing technological imperatives: southern Hungarian technique in the 1890s was far more complicated and interrelated than during the 1850s and 1860s when advanced technique was first introduced from overseas. To put it differently, it is highly probable that any attempt to introduce the sophisticated technologies of the 1890s directly into south Hungary in the absence of the accumulative technical changes of the years 1855-96 would have required an effort at financing, learning and organisation beyond the capacities of any private or public agency.

The concerted attempt during the years 1885-1900 to create a completely modernised mining and metallurgical capacity in south Russia illustrates the escalating costs and difficulties associated with late development as time went by. This project was a very important component of the state-instigated Russian industrial spurt of the 1890s” and centred on a variety of technology transfers involving European and American labour and

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engineering skills, entrepreneurs, financing and firms, joint ventures and government guarantees, all primarily located within an area on the north coast of the Black Sea bounded by Odessa,

Kharkov and Rostov.” By the turn of the century over 50 per cent of all foreign capital in Russia was located within this area and Russia had reached fourth place in the global production of iron, 50 per cent of its output coming from the project.”* Technology transfers here represented more in the way of sudden transformation from established techniques than was the case in most other central or eastern European examples.” The project was directly instigated by the imposition of high duties on iron imports and the government construction of the Ekaterinsky railway joining the iron of the Krivoi Rog with the Donetz coal basin (265 miles). This was followed by two waves of private sector followership, comprising a phase around 1895 when foreign enterprises were dependent on government favour,® and a subsequent phase of expansion less dependent on direct government intervention and incorporating partnerships between Russian and foreign interests. A major reason for the relative success of this development, despite its expense and complexity, might well have been the generation of project economies and spread effects. That is, as time went on, transferred technological improvements were more efficiently deployed or utilised, thereby allowing learning and adaptation to set in.*! Enterprises within the south Russian project which took over the functions of a capital goods sector became centres of competitive emulation, within which greater technical efficiency in core project activities (e.g., steel-making) were captured and from whence the effects spread into areas such as foodstuffs, textiles, locomotive manufacture,

cement-

making and so on. It may be that these effects, occurring within comparatively advanced technological projects, were vital to the success of late industrialisation during the years prior to World War I, and beyond. A good example of the unestimated effects of technological modernisation may be drawn from the Russian case. Until the 1890s, relatively sophisticated agricultural machinery such as mowing and reaping machines, portable engines and steam threshing machines was imported into Russia from

Technology in History m 47

western Europe and North America. The metallurgical capacities of the project in south Russia altered this technological

dependency.® An exceptional demand from agriculture, combined with the low value of the rouble (making foreign machinery expensive), led to a speedy entry of Russian-made agricultural machinery, especially ploughs and reapers, into the local markets. A short-term rise in labour prices due to the combined demands of a good harvest and new ironworks sustained the decision of local landowners to replace labour with machinery whenever feasible. State activity was still of some importance. Tariff policy was not the sole influence.** Thus the Russian agricultural exhibition of late 1887 was held at Kharkov and focussed on a long series of formal trials of equipment in which foreign engineering suppliers competed with each other and with Russian firms.** By the mid-1890s, Russian and forand eign firms based in and around Odessa, Kiev, Kharkov the of d specialise more the but all ng Sebastapol were threateni that itself project the of area the within imported lines. It was in order European and American traders and agents gathered two-way resultant the and to seek out market opportunities, Russian diffusion of information was clearly of benefit to both the joined firms American s. engineers and Russian landowner up, set to experts and agents ed Europeans in sending experienc mie competitiv this In .” maintain and repair their machinery requirelieu, foreign suppliers sought to adapt to the specific combined instance, For ment of the south Russian markets. for most Rusharvesters and binders were difficult to handle for the soil. heavy too was sian workers, additional equipment successcompeted Kiev in The American suppliers of reapers of grounds the on suppliers fully against British and Hungarian an up set then t cost and lightness. The Hungarian governmen s and diffuse office in Kiev to organise sellers and purchaser at the machinery information. They thereby supplied thrashing the of opinion the expense of British manufacturers despite ‘copmere were machines British engineers that the Hungarian equipment faced far ies’ of their own. In fact, the Hungarian distributed by an was lower freight charges, was lighter, and through catathan active and knowledgeable agency rather machinery exhibited at logues.* The new American thrashing

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the Chicago exhibition in 1893 was even lighter than that of the British or other foreign suppliers. The American machines were therefore less expensive, more appropriate and were charged lower duties at the point of import.*’ In this intense environ the less competitive suppliers like the British were increasingly forced out, and the Russian engineering establishments prospered. The Russian iron ploughs may not have been as strong and light as those of USA, but the absence of heavy freight and tariff charges gave the local engineering firms a distinct edge.™ Such a variety of examples might make generalisation difficult. However, one or two points concerning late development through technological modernisation do become clearer. Within the period concerned here, the technologies of machinofacture and the chemical industries increased in scale and complexity at a rapid rate, far more than in the years prior to, or during, the first industrial revolution. Changing technological imperatives, therefore, became perhaps the most significant barrier to industrialisation through technology transfer. In greatly disadvantaged locations, the principal forces behind choice of project undoubtedly lay in the nature of raw material resources and the strategic requirements of the state. However, purely statist ownership and control over the process of technological modernisation was to begin with, unlikely, and of no long-term benefit to the overall process of industrialisation. The emulative activity of both domestic and foreign enterprise served to create competition and a spread of applications. Together these made up a more efficienct utilisation of advanced technique. At the same time, multiple agency meant a multitude of transfer mechanisms and partnerships and this produced information and choice, both of which might have been less forthcoming in purely statist technological projects.

COLONIALISM AND THE MECHANISMS OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER At the outset it must be admitted that it is very difficult to separate the impact of cumulative alterations in the dominant

Technology in History Ml 49

technological imperatives from barriers associated with colonial transfer mechanisms. Regions which were formally colonised (such as India) or informally but collectively invaded (such as China) were predominantly relatively backward economies, which even in an alternative world of open, competitive free trading would have exhibited in exaggerated

degree the problems of transfer witnessed in cases like Russia, Poland or Hungary. Nevertheless, in establishing a clutch of institutions, policies and attitudes of global reach, colonialism added extra dimensions to the problem of industrialisation through technology transfer.* The literature on modern colonialism includes positions very representative of the liberal—conventional approach (see section on paradigms lost) and of conservative perceptions of the role of ‘culture’. For instance, whilst the European 18th-century ‘enlightenment’ commentators tended to explain China’s failure to westernise or trade with Europe in terms of authority structures within the Mandarin bureaucracy, by the late 19th century attitudes had somewhat hardened. Now the failure of modernised technique and industry to take root in China had little to do with technological imperatives or transfer mechanisms, but was centred on the overall political and cultural ramifications of the socio-political system, and

that frivolous, ignorant and vain class which takes egotism to be patriotism, and only thinks of upsetting everything, instead of using its intelligence and influence for the good of the country. As to the common folk in general, given over to its instincts ... it trembles as it thinks of the calamities which are in store for it in the future.”

corruption Thus, Confucianism bred high costs, conservatism, which nisms mecha and a disdain for physical exertion or the ism Hindu case, might abbreviate it.” Similarly, in the Indian rs barrie al cultur and caste have been singled out as inherent rial indust and (not merely constraints) to technological reduced livmodernisation. On such a thesis, the caste system ction and intera ing standards and markets, suppressed social ed the remov and therefore a more virulent learning process,

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intelligentsia from the realm.of physical work and mechanical solutions.” Contemporary analyses of problems of development in the 20th century often follow in this tradition, as with Elkan’s generalisation that ‘there do seem to exist greatly varying propensities to develop among different people at any one time, and that these may be more easily explainable in non-economic terms’. Here we might note that Elkan’s generalisation is a very difficult one to sustain or operationalise. Does the ‘non-economic’ refer to specific nonmarket institutions or to a more general, perhaps anthropological, conception of ‘culture’? How the Rostovian ‘propensities’ may be isolated as determinants of events and ‘failures’ is not at all clear. Many so-called ‘propensities’ are themselves surely epiphenomena of earlier interactions between the colonised and the colonisers. Value systems are difficult to identify, and it is even more difficult for any historian to ascribe particular ‘behaviour’ to particular ‘values’, especially when analysing at the level of whole societies or nations. More empirically, a great deal of recent work has argued for the technological vibrancy of pre-colonial systems, especially those of India and China, has isolated the general negative impacts of colonial regimes, or has shifted attention from ‘culture’ to more obvious and immediate obstacles to industrial and technological modernisation relating to institutions for information dispersal or the conferring of property rights, specific physical and human resources, climate, topography, location and so on. Finally, from a non-empirical and non-expert perspective, postmodernist cultural relativism has cast doubts upon the methodological veracity of simple dichotomies and reductions in explaining a great complexity of events. So, from a variety of angles, the simpler

versions of liberal conventionalism, at least as applied to the interpretation of colonial non-development, have come under serious attack. A reduction in the commercial vitality of existing protoindustries represented a particularly negative technological impact of colonialism. By severely undermining the traditional equipment, craft and skills base, early colonialism created an artificially: weak context for the introduction of modernised technique at a later date. In non-colonised Meiji Japan, a rich history of rural and part-time industries acted as an essential

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environment for the introduction, adaptation and diffusion of arange of western techniques, equipment and materials.” The dense, concentrated phase of technology transfer into Japan (approximately 1868-85) was replete with Kyoshin-kai (competitive exhibitions), trade associations, joint ventures and partnerships and government guidance and publicity, the existence of which lay at the core of the transfer process, yet would have made no historical or political sense in the absence of a sturdy and continuing traditional industry sector.’ A tragedy of both formal colonialism and informal commercial domination was that such industries tended to be breached at the very point of increased technological interaction. The example of the invasion of the Chinese textile and handicraft is well industries by imports and through treaty port pressures negatively known, but so too did British colonial policy impact of the on traditional industries. Thus, the monopoly position just India, of East India Company reduced the internal markets any destroyed as the industrial revolution in Britain itself transport, in potential export markets. Technical improvements enterprise communication and civil control further inhibited the e acclimatis to of Indian producers.* Attempts by the British modernise or European silkworms, to sustain indigo production l and pig iron output all flew in the face of the commercia the addition, institutional impacts of colonialism itself. In choice cal monopoly power of Britain severely limited technologi Thus, in the within India and sliced into the learning curve. drummer of later case of the railways, so often deemed the central to large 19th-century technological progress and so and Russia (see metallurgical and mining schemes in Europe the British section on Technology and Late Industrialisation), be drawn from the dictated that, in India, suppliers were to to very precise ‘home country’ and that projects should conform little possibility of specifications in which there was very British regulations technological adaptation or response. gauge, building design, dictated characteristics like speed, , formation width, construction materials, patterns of utilisation mining there was some gradients etc.” In iron-making and

ion of standard attempt at experimentation, of modificat assumed that the was it also here equipment and design. But

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technological modernisation process was to be entirely in the hands of European engineers using a relatively fixed set of existing techniques. No policy was laid down for formal labour training, the assumption at best being that under the ‘right’ conditions there would slowly but surely take place a ‘tricklingdown’ of useful knowledge from Westerners to the indigenous workers and managers. In his technical report of 1888 on the project for modernised iron working in Chandra District, the consultant engineer Ritter C. von Schwarz urged that: there is in the native a deficiency of practical professional training and a lower degree of physical and moral strength. I believe he can be made to learn the work required at a blast furnace and rolling mill, if he be treated at it with gentleness and patience, if he be strictly controlled, if he be not worked too hard, and if his religious and other preju-_ dices be respected; his physical strength will rise with better diet obtained by means ofbetter wages.... It would also be advisable to promise rewards to the European workmen for every native trained sufficiently to replace a European...._ Unskilled work, such as loading and unloading, the work at the cranes, carriage, masonry, carpentry, locksmith’s work, and all auxiliary work can be done by natives, and may be estimated at half the cost for which it is done in Europe.!

von Schwarz was, if anything, ahead of general opinion on the viability of skill transfers in Britain and British India.” Nevertheless, his judgement may only be contrasted with the seemingly inherent learning process characterising the contemporaneous railway projects of the Meiji government in Japan. Here foreigners were employed, but only as outside advisors and spectators of a real interaction between indigenous skills and modernised technique. Thus, as early as 1871 it was reported from informed observers within J apan that:

Japanese workmen are able to turn out very fine specimens of castings and other iron work, while they were able to alter the gauge of some ordinary navigation trucks

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from 4 feet to 3 feet 6 inches, turning new axles and completing the work in a thoroughly efficient manner. This speaks a great deal for their capabilities of using foreign machines and tools, and it is no slight praise to say that some castings for screw piles at Rokugo are equal in every respect to those made by Europeans.!” By the next decade much of the surveying, engineering and construction work on new projects was done by the Japanese, engines and offices were manned by them, and the basic wooden and lighter metal parts were manufactured in Japan.'* Such a brief but vivid comparison suggests that a loss of sovereignty over technical decision-making necessarily entailed a removal of essential links in the late development process. What of the possible countervailing, positive impacts of colonial arrangements or institutions which acted as direct transfer mechanisms to such sites? This is a relatively undeveloped area of enquiry, but evidence from British colonial institutions suggests several inherent limitations. Contemporary engineers commented frequently enough on the inappropriateness of materials and equipment sent out under the Crown Agency System.’ So, ‘due regard is not paid to the peculiar exigencies of site, climate and service’ and ‘unnecessary solidity, and therefore expense, are bestowed on materials required for anew and sparsely populated district’. In the case of South Africa locomotives were sent not only of the wrong types, but shipped to ports where no cranes were available for landing them.” The tendering procedures of such government agencies as the Admiralty or the India Office favoured repeated partnerships, and did not represent a genuine searching of the available range of appropriate techniques and materials even within Britain itself. Scandals and failures meant that in many cases, ‘honest firms are discouraged, and become disinclined to tender’, and collusion between officials and contractors at times became notorious. Only at the turn of the century did international technological competition enter the tendering system, when of English contractors lost out to foreign competitors because based were that structures lack of real site experience and cost on increasingly ancient and rigid designs and specifications.’

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This arose from changes in two kinds of agency, as evidenced in the Indian case. Local, India-based officials increasingly searched © technology on the basis of both cost and appropriateness. Thus, the large power scheme for the Cauvery Falls (Mysore), designed to provide constant power to the gold fields and to mills and factories, was contracted on this basis to competitive American manufacturers and to the innovative Zurich-based firm of Escher Wyss (for turbines).!°’ Second, there were very rare cases of large-scale Indian manufacturers independently initiating transfers of advanced equipment and, indeed, entire projects. Thus, when J.N. Tata and his sons started the very ambitious hydroelectric project based on lakes Walwhan and Shirawta in the Western Ghats, they did employ British engineering consultants over a long period, the transferred technique however included a large amount of German and Dutch machinery, powerhouse, railway and headgate equipment from Switzerland (again, Escher Wyss and Co.), and transformers and switch-gear equipment from the General Electric Co. of America.'® It seems that at least in the case of the British colonies there is no substantial evidence that imperial institutions served as efficient mechanisms of appropriate technology transfer. The unchecked operation of free trade might well have produced a better result.

A MODERN CLIMACTERIC: TECHNOLOGY AND THE East ASIA EDGE The relative decline of USA and Europe in the world system since 1973 has been contemporaneous with the more dramatic rise of the newly industrialising countries (NICs) of East Asia and elsewhere.'* We may quite reasonably identify the period since the early 1970s as representing a second great climac-

teric, in which a new array of winners and losers has appeared. It is the period when once more technology transfer, institutional innovations, foreign trade and capital movements assumed tremendous significance.!” Does the success of East Asian economic and technological development in recent years contradict the arguments of the

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sections on technology and late industrialisation on colonisation and the mechanisms of technology transfer? Recent climacteric trends go strongly against the linear predictions of any schema confined to industrialisation in the modern era, based as it was on an increasingly refined machinofacture and chemical technology, on competitive nation states as the principal institution-builders, and on an Atlantic-based culture of competitive individualism, applied rationality and political systems based on the decisions of agents and organisations operating in more or less free markets.

Our present argument is that the climacteric of recent years may indeed be examined within the framework sketched here, and particularly with reference to the dynamic barriers outlined as determinants of the historical patterns of the 19th and earlier20th century. Our thesis is that the modern climacteric has been associated with quite a drastic alteration in the operation of barriers on at least two of the three levels identified in the section titled ‘Introduction—Paradigms Lost’ discussed earlier. It has been popularly argued that East Asian development is predicated on cultural advantage. Rather than acting as a first-level barrier to innovation and advancement, the Chinese

culture of industrialising Asia is visualised as a major contributor to national and regional competitive success. So, the information diffusing flexibility of most Japanese enterprise, interpreted as a key to industrial and technological success, is often presented in loosely ‘cultural’ terms. Enterprise ‘cultures’ of mutual dependence and reliance may be viewed as institutional reflections of a wider cultural configuration in which interpersonal relations are sought and valued as ends in themselves, rather than means

towards

either material gain or the attainment of those social comforts which follow from repeated confirmations of social place and status.!!! More specific elements, such as the famous ‘threetreasures’ of lifetime employment, seniority promotion and enterprise unionism may then be interpreted as micro- or sub-institutional arrangements arising naturally from the deeper, ‘cultural’ imperatives of the overall social system, rather than as institutional innovations specifically designed to produce industrial growth.'” These elements in turn provide the direct functional context for the success of such

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technical features of the ‘Japanese system’ as speedy transfers, adaptation and design flexibility, quality control circles, kanban and Just in Time manufacturing processes. !23 Wider conceptions of a ‘Confucian renaissance’ address the greater phenomenon of the East Asia edge in its entirety. It has been argued that the so-called ‘edge’ is comprised of a group of industrialising nations exhibiting a more or less common ‘culture’ which embraces shared linguistic understandings as well as shared (non-language) behaviour patterns. It is based less on contracts or formal rules, and more on personal relationships, seniority, non-verbal cues, deliberation and the physical context of communication.' Within this larger culture, ideas, information and techniques of production pass to and fro relatively swiftly and securely, yielding technical, industrial, and commercial outcomes which are increasingly independent of the hegemony of the industrialised Atlantic nations which appeared outstandingly established during the greater part of the 20th century. In this view, industrial and technological success in East Asia represents not merely a geographic shift in the location of growth, but a cultural shift in the origins of growth. Together, such points add up to the conclusion that ‘culture’ did not act as a barrier, but as an inducement to technological modernisation in late 20th-century East Asia. However, although much of this may be very useful, a satisfactory interpretation of East Asian success demands a little more. Clearly ‘cultural advantage’ in this case could only operate after initial growth poles such as Japan or Hong Kong had emerged. Given cultural endowments became cultural assets only once growth occurred somewhere within the East Asian edge. Second, the industrial results of this cultural story surely depend on the idea that East Asian nations were ina good position to exploit the new technologies and industries emerging during the 1970s, and that a principal source of new ideas and techniques was Japan rather than Europe or the USA. We may restate this in terms of our more underlying position. Any cultural or other endowments possessed by East Asia became assets or resources for industrial and technological progress only through the emergence, in the very modern period, of Japanese economic expansionism and technical acumen, a tremendo us

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widening and strengthening of technology transfer mechanisms, and a group of new industries whose technological imperatives were quite other than those of the machinofactures associated with earlier Atlantic development. Although earlier post-war industrial developments in Asia were based on older sectors like textiles, the accelerated growth of the 1970s and beyond is primarily due to the application of new techniques and the creation of entirely new industrial sec-

tors such as microelectronics and telecommunications, new

ma-

terials and biotechnologies.'® In brief, much but not all of the super growth of the years since 1970 has been a result of the adoption of techniques in new industries which are not characterised by the technological imperatives of the previous ‘modern’ era. Information, communication, search and research and flexibility are now of greater importance than mass markets, large fixed capital assets and structures and cheap factory labour. Although modern East Asian development might have begun with low priced labour and simple techniques,'* it has been sustained in nations such as Japan and South Korea through the efficient exploitation of the earned advantages stemming from new institutions, skills and reward systems. The microelectronics sector represents an excellent example of changed technological imperatives. It is based entirely on just two initial core and related technologies, the integrated circuit and software, developed outside East Asia. This sector is also of particular note because its products and industries exert manifold effects on total development ‘through the structural transformation they permit and provoke’.""” By the early 1980s, although USA was the largest global player in this sector, only Japan and the Asian NICs exhibited net export earnings from electronic products. By the mid-1980s Japan owned approximately 75 per cent of the global trade in the high tech area of integrated circuits.'"8 The increased competitive advantage of East Asia in this sector, despite the clear initial superiority of the USA in core technological developments,'® is certainly the result of the inherent technological nature of the sector (which favoured production by diversified industrial groups, as in Japan) and the juxtaposition to and chronology of events. However, institutional forces seem

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have played a very important part as well. Due to the relatively short lifespan of US firms, the industry is especially susceptible to the overseas sale or loss of proprietary knowledge, as well as general skill dispersal. Again, the firms in East Asia have tended to focus on market shares rather than short-run internal returns on investments, and the causes of this distinction may lie in institutions.!2° Perhaps the most convincing case for the determining role of key institutions may be found in the field of very advanced automation i.e., manufacturing planning and control systems, robots and flexible manufacturing systems. Here, speedy application of new technologies may depend almost entirely on enterprise structure and culture, and on government policy. Thus, shopfloor innovation combined with broadlydefined job responsibilities has resulted in a tendency for larger Japanese companies to produce advanced equipment for their own uses, to then become expert vendors of what is a ‘userbased’ product and to be aided in this by government programmes ‘aimed at promoting the development and application of commercial equipment and its widespread diffusion’.*! From the broader historical perspective, then, we might suggest that East Asian development has at least partially been based on the emergence (initially elsewhere) of new industries whose technical characteristics suited the already emerging public and private institutional structures of later developing systems, amongst which the East Asian nations were particularly well placed. Recent data shows that the position of East Asian nations in world trading of high R&D intensity products has improved tremendously in the last decade or so, mostly at the expense of the advanced industrial OECD- nations.” Expert commentators have increasingly linked the high technology commercial advantage of East Asia to a virtuous combination of (a) foreign capital associated transfersin with (6) appropriate host institutions and policies. Thus, Wilhelm Kurth of the OECD has summarised that East Asian developments were

sustained by indigenous dynamic factors and, in many cases, the participation of foreign capital and were aimed to effect a shift from the previous domestic market orientation to

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integration into the world market and to move towards higher technology products.

However, of even greater significance perhaps, as an explanation of the modern climacteric, were the quantitative and qualitative changes in the character of prevailing transfer mechanisms. Even our very partial coverage in the sections ‘Wellsprings: The Chaos of the 18th Century’, ‘And Then Something Happened’, and _ Late Technology Development?: ‘Transferred of Mechanisms the Industrialisation’ and ‘Colonialism and random the illustrated Technology Transfer’, has sufficiently and cursory nature of transfer mechanisms throughout most of the modern era. Trade and individual agency has rapidly given way to tightly controlled ‘internal’ transfers between differently located components of transnational enterprises, to joint ventures and technology licencing and to sales deals involving some association of turnkey plants, machinery and equipment. Perhaps more than ever, such mechanisms transfer technologies which are still regarded as best practice amongst the core industrialised nations. For example, about 90 per cent of contemporary technology transfer through licencing is of products or processes that are still being used by the licensee, and a great proportion of such agreements also embrace either technological services or some form of joint venture.!” It would appear that East Asian development has especially benefited from the modern expansions and growth of transfer mechanisms, particularly of those linking (in approximate chronological order) the Atlantic economies with Japan; Japan and the first group of Hong Asian industrialising economies (especially South Korea, and Asia; Kong, Taiwan and Singapore); Japan and Southeast of the industrial globe to China through the crucial conduits on debate Hong Kong and Taiwan. There is, of course, much notice the this issue,!”°although historians might be tempted to coincidence of East Asian industrial and technological from 1971 development, Japanese economic expansion, especially industries and again from 1985, and the growth of the new (mentioned earlier). China since The most accelerated or encapsulated case is that of

mid-1970s.'”’ the ‘opening up’ of the mainland economy after the

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Whatever the overall impacts of the reform period in China (circa 1978-85), one corequisite of internal institutional innovation was a great expansion of external relations through the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and the designated coastal cities anda massive process of technology transfer associated with waves of overseas investment passing through Hong Kong and Taiwan in particular, to such fast-modernising coastal provinces as Guangdong, Xinjiang, Fujian and Yunnan.’” Growth of per capita GNP in cities such as Shanghai, Beijing or Tianjin was nothing less than astounding, especially to those commentators whose vision of China had been strongly fixed in the decades of the 1960s and 1970s.1”° In this most contemporary phase of technological and industrial transformation certain points stand out. By the early 1990s greater technological improvement was evidenced within the private sector enterprises, especially within those firms involved in technical and financial joint ventures with overseas agents. Also, by this time, technology transfers and industrial growth which had been initiated in provinces close to Hong Kong or Taiwan, especial beneficiaries of new institutional arrangements,'” had spread inwards to more central and distant regions. Modern China was drawing advantage from the existence of unique conduits which acted as relevant and specific mechanisms of transfer linking the new China to Europe, the USA and industrialised Asia. By the turn of the 1990s some 75 per cent of new foreign direct investment entering China was via either Hong Kong or Taiwan. Of great note was the character of the investment. By the 1980s, US $22 billion of Hong Kong direct investment had flowed through the SEZs and Guangdong, into a huge variety of small manufactures as well as large infrastructural projects. Taiwanese and South Korean investment similarly shared an emphasis on medium-advanced technologies in smallscale and labour intensive operations. A technological system, which prior to the reforms had been clearly stifled by its heavily institutionalised and centralised politico-economic environment, has been very rapidly modernised and rejuvenated through technology transfers issuing from an extremely unusual, closely interconnected series of transfer mechanisms. In sum, mainland China is a case of development

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where all dynamic barriers (see section titled ‘Paradigms Lost’) are falling or weakening. The reforms of 1978-85 converted underutilised and very inefficiently organised endowments into assets, at a time when the global locus of growth had shifted to a region sharing many of the linguistic and social attributes of the mainland.!*! Growth in East Asia had absorbed a large fraction of China’s processed or manufactured raw materials (much of the rest going to the USA); new technologies in new industries offered scope for rapid redeployment of resources; and, transfer mechanisms strengthened and expanded in range. China represents our most recent case of rapid industrial modernisation through technology transfer and transformation, one in which it is very difficult to identify any attendant and similarly sudden reversal of indigenous cultural and physical endowments. Contrariwise, contemporary Chinese development does seem to have been most strongly associated with a period of quite specific institutional innovations, followed by a reduction of those dynamical barriers to transferred development stemming from inappropriate technological imperatives or a failure of transfer mechanisms.

CONCLUSIONS: MitL, MARX AND CONVENTIONALISM Modern work in the history of science has exhibited a doublephased movement towards the greater admittance of ‘context’. In the first phase, analysts like David Bloor or scholarly historians like Charles Webster illustrated how the social, political and economic interests and commitments of actors (scientists and others) strongly influenced the acceptance of theories appertaining to the natural world.” In most current cases if ‘evidence’ has not adequately justified theoretical constructions, then some forms of ‘social interest’ present in the past must have 4 In influenced theoretical constructions and their acceptance. history its present second phase, a significant component of the might of science has moved towards the idea that this perspective That also be adopted in the interpretation of scientific practice. theory for is, even the recognised empirical base (‘inadequate’

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construction) is itself to an extent socially constructed. Thus, the practical life of the laboratory impinges upon what is acceptable as data and what is not.” There is no strict analogue of this trend in the history of technology, which at any rate boasts no particular paradigm or special approach. What we might see as roughly parallel is a first phase of contextualisation in which new technology is increasingly accepted as something which requires ‘external’ sources for its creation, and to that extent is socially constructed. However, the extent to which technological change impacts upon industry and the economy is almost certainly conditioned by forces quite ‘external’ to the techniques themselves. Thus, a history of technology may have been ‘contextualised’ when interpretation is based on a recognition of the external ‘sourcing’ of inventiveness and innovation, and on a similar recognition of the external forces influencing the impact of technological changes on economic and social changes more broadly. In this chapter we have utilised both these levels of contextualisation, as well as a particular interpretation of the manner in which the external world impinges upon the power of technological change as a modus vivendi of more wholesale transformations. Here, the conception of dynamical barriers to technological emulation and adaptation is central. It removes the historical account from most conventional historiography. We have claimed that it is only when historians of technology are prepared to address questions of barriers to technology diffusion and transfer that they allow themselves access to the really important questions concerning the possible determinants of or influences upon the very variable economic fortunes of nation states. In this view, historical work which focusses only on the context-ridden nature of technology creation and innovation remains ‘conventional’, however ‘sociological’ it may be, in that

the explanation still tends to seek out the ‘factors’ which are relatively abundant in cases of‘success’ and relatively scarce in cases of‘failure’. John Stuart Mill (1806-73) and Karl Marx (1818-83) are often juxtaposed as representatives of very different and mutually exclusive positions on matters of political economy and socio-economic development. Within our present framework they appear as leading exponents of different aspects

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of an essentially conventional approach to technological change and development. Mill was fully prepared to address the big question (see section titled ‘Introduction—Paradigms Lost’) in terms of technology and efficiency. So, a major task of his political economy was to explain the ‘evident’ truth that, productive efficacy varies greatly at various times and places. With the same population and territory, some countries have a much larger amount of production than others and the same country at one time a greater amount than itself at another.’

His solution to the problem opened the canopy of the subsequent liberal—conventional perspective. Initial industrial or economic development proceeded from ‘factorial’ attributes relating to climate and raw materials, skills, attitudes, organisation, knowledge (including that already embedded in technology), levels of trust and risk and so on. Mill did not seem to develop a theory of initial innovation, and argued that the generation and application of knowledge was a subject for studies other than political economy. Nevertheless, his inclination was towards the importance of human capital and institutions, and away from the potency of conventional factor endowments.” Mill’s emphasis on social context, and his seeming assumption of the unproblematic diffusion of technology to areas beyond its original creation or development, laid the foundations of the major historiography concerning the history of technology. Karl Marx more explicitly believed in the naturally transforming power of superior technology as it transferred-out from centres of origin. This is most evident in his various treatments of India written between the 1850s and the 1880s. Thus Marx (in

an article of 1853) said:

... when you have once introduced machinery into the locomotion of a country, which possesses iron and coals, you are unable to withhold it from its fabrication. You cannot maintain a net of railways over an immense country without introducing all those industrial processes necessary to meet the immediate and current wants of railway locomotion,

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and out of which there must grow the application of machinery to those branches of industry not immediately connected with railways. The railway system will therefore become, in India, truly the forerunner of modern industry. This is the more certain as the Hindoos are allowed by British authorities themselves to possess particular aptitude for accommodating themselves to entirely new labour, and acquiring the requisite knowledge of machinery.... Modern industry, resulting from the railway system, will dissolve the hereditary divisions of labour, upon which rest the Indian castes, those decisive impediments to Indian progress and Indian power. '** Although his later analyses of the British presence in India emphasised several negative impacts of specific policies,8°Marx never abandoned his belief that British technology would transfer effectively and irrevocably, and in doing so destroy the sociocultural basis of backwardness. Technology plus trade would annihilate the older village institutions, ‘blowing up their economical basis’.'*° Admittedly accompanied by social friction, introduced technologies destroyed the egoistical conservatism of tradition and paved the way, unproblematically, for innovation. Such cumulative effects compensated for the ‘bleeding process’ whereby Britain leached the subcontinent of its income through rents, dividends, pensions and wars."! Similarly, in the case of China, Marx argued that British trade, capital and technique combined to produce the civil unrest which in turn would bring in a new world of innovation and modernisation to replace the unmoving ‘fossil form of social life’.1#2 Our view, expressed throughout this chapter, is that technology transfer and modernisation has always been problematic, and that in many cases (including those of India and China) introduced technology was certainly associated with social and political dissolution, but not with the sustained, consequent development of modern industries. This was not so solely because such ‘failures’ exhibited retardative cultures or other ‘factorial’ lacunae, but because internal social dislocations were set against an environment of rising and strengthening barriers associated with changing technological

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imperatives and transfer mechanisms. We may now finally note some of the ways in which our brief historical accounts do modify the blandness or crudity of the ‘barriers’ presentation in the section ‘Paradigms Lost’, discussed in the beginning of this chapter. (a) A more sophisticated approach might formally identify differences between constraints, resistances and barriers. The latter have been the focus of this chapter. Clearly, constraints can be overcome. The history of the modern era is replete with such examples, from Britain to Japan, of development based on imported raw materials or machinery in the face of knowledge and physical constraints. Again, technical innovation itself has often been interpreted in terms of the solution to given constraints relating to raw materials, skills or the emergence of ‘reverse salients’ within the technological system itself.* This chapter is structured on the understanding that constraints are quite frequently overcome (e.g., the Japal nese case), but often then, technological or industria social negative term longer of expense the success is at difand political outcomes.“ Resistances are somewhat ent developm core the of features ferent, being dynamic of process as well as a feature of catching-up. All cases to seem triumph ical technolog and eventual industrial e have in common a special phase of reduction of resistanc be it whether matures, or occurs it as to technical change by workthe defeat of British Luddism (active resistance Japanese the of ng overcomi e ers) or the more expensiv fomented m modernis to e resistanc Satsuma rebellion (active North, by erstwhile elites). From Karl Polanyi to Douglass role of essential the ed a range of analysts have emphasis technolonew of ding the state in the political undergir wise, politigies and new market institutions.'“° Contrari where social nations in cal breakdown has often occurred techimported to reactions on resistances have been based the during s ideologie d nologies, procedures and associate lisation, industria late of crucial, relatively short phases or Indonesia in the e.g., Russia in the early 20th century

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1960s."° Insofar as it increases the risk environment (even without wholesale revolution or regime disturbance), civil resistance to new technologies seemingly dampens the power of ‘followership’, whereby private sector interests take over the initiating technological role of the state, e.g., India in the 1950s and 1960s. (b) Historically (not ideologically), states and markets are not opposing building blocks of our interpretation.!*7 The relationship between them in periods of early industrial development (whether from a position of relative national economic forwardness or from one of economic backwardness) is found to be primarily chronological or sequential. (c) We have stressed that technological imperatives change quite rapidly within the emerging core industrial nations. But our examples from south Poland, south Hungary or Russia (see section on transferred development) show that speedy change in technological imperatives occurs also within the ‘follower’ nations themselves during the periods of early industrial spurt (e.g., Russia in the 1890s). Pushing forward the technological frontier for new ‘late starters’ involves accelerated time. For such reasons, the

previous late developers are not necessarily effective mod-

els of, or resources

for, the next phase of late develop-

ment, for they may exhibit in exaggerated degree the most modern technological developments set against a background of continued, even entrenched rural underdevelopment. This acceleration process, then, closes new opportunities for late development, given the existence of a prevailing global technological and industrial paradigm (e.g., of machinofacture), which in turn dictates the overall character of the technological imperatives. (d) Following from (a), over time within successful industr ialisers (led by the early, core nations), there is constant sociocultural adjustment to advances in the industrial system. These represent a non-technical learning process for the system, not yet available to potential ‘follower’ system s. Thus, the process of social adaptation to the technologies and institutions of late development involves strains and solutions which were never generated in early developers. It seems

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to follow, then, that it would not be completely unrealistic

to suggest that the social systems possessed by earlier developers at the time of their early development, would never have been able to smoothly absorb the difficulties and political outcomes of their own later advanced technological and institutional development. Yet, this is precisely the functional requirement of the social and political systems of late developers. (e) Formal colonialism does not represent a completed argument, explaining underdevelopment or the ‘failure’ to transfer modernised technique. Colonial linkages between core economies and relatively backward economies tended to explicate problems relating to both transfer mechanisms and technological imperatives (see section titled ‘Colonialism and Mechanisms of Technology Transfer’). However, such rising barriers to transfer would have acted against success even in the absence of empire. Intensive large-scale transfers into late 19thcentury Russia ended in political breakdown, and similar huge projects in Poland and Hungary yielded only a very partial industrial modernisation in the 20th century. the (f) Until very recent times, and especially in East Asia, the to med historical trends have, on the whole, confor Dech. predictions of even the ‘cruder’ barrier approa interspite the efforts and genuine goodwill of a host of h throug national agencies and schemes, development very a technology transfer and transformation became World difficult act to follow from the end of the First Indeed, War to the 1960s.'** Nobody joined the winners. define ‘modone manner in which we might coherently of a group ernism’ is that it was a global representation them evolved of leading industrial nations, who between and behaviour a series of institutions, social structures

d not to captpatterns more or less functionally attune ements of talism, but to the particular forms and requir and infrastructhe machinofacture, chemical] industries ialisation. industr of period 60s pre-19 the tures characterising (see sectives impera ogical technol Change in the prevailing ed a provid Edge’) Asia East the tion titled “Technology and of group new a for unity technological window of opport

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lan Inkster

‘winners’. Within the resulting climacteric, nations especially benefiting from improved transfer mechanisms have performed as foremost leaders amongst the still relatively small group of ‘followers’. Although the group still excludes most of Indo-China, Africa and South America, the entry into it of nations like Indonesia and China fundamentally alters the global distributions of income, information and technological resources. (g) The recent success of East Asia points to the wonderful complexities of the conjuncture. Given ‘factors’ (e.g., culture or skills) which supposedly acted as ‘barriers’ to industrial and technological modernisation prior to the latter half of the 20th century were redefined as assets by a process of technological change which began in the Atlantic. A decisive shift in the character of technological imperatives in new industries (in turn greatly altering the nature of technique in older, userindustries) converted endowments into assets, and this took place just as transfer mechanisms became more efficient.

Although such modifications seem to follow from the text, each is as disputable as is the overall approach chosen. The liberal-radical perspective, nominated here, may embrace a great deal of the liberal—-conventional historiography without too much conceptual dissonance. After all, the entire modern dynamic would be lost in the absence of advanced techniques to transfer and emulate, or institu tions to learn by and from. For instance, historical account s which stress evolutionary concepts of novelty and which strive to explain ‘artifactual diversity’ in essentially artifactual terms, may yield an insight of great import ance.4° However, the ‘cultural determinism’ thread of much (by no means all) conventionalism is extremely difficult to specify or narrate. As, time and again, institutions adapt or change, ‘culture’ becomes something ofa will-o’-the-wisp, however formally we seek to define it. This, however, does not mean that initial innovation and industr ialisation is not somehow ‘contained’ in, and by, deeper cultural con-

Technology in History Ml 69

figurations, but merely that there don’t seem to exist very convincing arguments which more than casually link such elements with technological or industrial ‘failure’. The cultural component of initial ‘creation’, whether scientific, aesthetic or technical, remains another matter, but still one of great debate.

NoTES AND REFERENCES For some

discussion matters

(eds.), 1991, Postmodern

see Steven Best and Douglas Kellner,

Theory,

Critical Interrogations,

New York:

The Guildford Press. influence, see For symptomatic if at times crude indications of such ogy and CulTechnol in 1991, papers by Buchanan, Law and Scanton, ture, 32(2): 365-93.

ay Life: Civilisation Fernand Braudel, 1981, The Structures of Everyd vol. I, London: Collins, and Capitalism from the 15th c. to the 18th c., p. 428. Theory of Economic DeJames H. Street, 1987, ‘The Institutionalist 1851-73; lan Inkster, 21: Issues, ic Econom of l Journa velopment’, ic 1989, ‘The Institutionalist Theory of Econom

Development, Techno-

l of Economic Issues, 23: logical Progress and Social Change’, Journa 1243-47. WE. Bijker, T.P.

Hughes,

TJ.

Pinch

(eds.), 1987, The

Social

Con-

Directions in the Sociology struction of Technological Systems: New Press. MIT dge: and History of Technology, Cambri see Joel Mokyr, 1990, sm entali increm on ians histor by sis For empha Economic Progress, and vity Creati l logica The Lever of Riches, Techno Inkster, 1991, Science and TechIan Press; sity Univer Oxford : Oxford nology in History, London: Macmillan. : Science. Technology and Ian Inkster, 1988, ‘Prometheus Bound —A Political Economy ApIndia and China , Japan in Industrialisation 399-426. proach’, Annals of Science, 45:

10.

ule

Braudel, op.cit. (note 3), quote p. 430. 1982, ‘The Cause of the IndusAs a brief example only, see J. Gaski, Argument’, Journal of Euro’ trial Revolution: A Brief ‘Single Factor 4. 227-3 Il(1): y, pean Economic Histor the same frame, N. Jacobs, 1958, For very different approaches within

East Asia, Hong Kong; A.C. The Origins of Modern Capitalism and ns from Japanese DevelopLesso 1974, Kelley and J.G. Williamson, go Press. ment, Chicago, University of Chica Barriers are not equivalent to ‘obSee also the conclusion to this chapter. as t economists, which we might view stacles’ as used by earlier developmen to Development: 1962, ‘Obstacles constraints. See also A.O. Hirschman,

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A Classification and a Quasi-Vanishing Act’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 12; and Paul M. Sweezy, 1967, ‘Obstacles to Economic Development’, in C.H. Feinstein (ed.), Socialism, Capital-

12,

13.

14. 15.

16.

17. 18.

ism and Economic Growth, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. See Section on conclusions and the underlying argument of the previous section. If global industrial advancement (for perhaps exogenous reasons, e.g., random advances in the applied sciences) switches from one paradigm to another, then technological imperatives will have changed. Thus, the capital requirements and infrastructure demands of large machinofacture (e.g., steel-making, railways), will be quite different from those of microelectronics and biotechnologies. Of course, a public sector agency may lead to long-term and untenable political costs. For various approaches see Barrington Moor Jr., 1969, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, London: Penguin; Perry Anderson, 1979, Lineages of the Absolute State, London: Verso; Ian Inkster, 1992, ‘Relative Backwardness and Revolution: A Note on Marx, History and the Transition to Socialism’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 22: 146-51; K.A. Chaudhry, 1993, “The Myths of the Market and the Common History of Late Developers’, Politics and Society, 21(3): 245-74. See also Inkster op.cit. (note 6), Chapters 1, 2 and 5. David J. Jeremy, 1992, The Transfer of International Technology, Europe, Japan and the USA in the Twentieth Century, London: Edward Elgar Publishing; D. Charles and J. Howells, 1992, Technology Transfer in Europe, Public and Private Networks, London: Belhaven Press. For an introduction to the social and cultural background see Mark Elvin, 1973, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Stanford: Stanford University Press; S. Naquin and E. Rawski, 1987, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, New Haven: Yale University Press; and for an interesting case study see S. Naquin, 1981, Shantung Rebellion: The Wang Lun Uprising of 1774, New Haven: Yale University Press. For a brief critical approach to cultural arguments, including those for China, see lan Inkster, 1995, ‘Colonial and Neo-Colonial Transfer of Technol-

ogy: Perspectives on India before 1914’, in R. MacLeod and D. Kumar (eds.), Technology and the Raj, Western Technology and Technical Transfers to India 1700-1947, pp. 25-50, New Delhi: Sage. This approach forces the historian to consider the term ‘necessary and sufficient’ far more critically when postulating ‘explanations’. Michio Morishima, 1982, Why Has Japan Succeeded? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. But see also R.N. Bellah, 1963, ‘Reflections on the Protestant Ethic Analogy in Asia’, Journal of Social Issues, 19: 51-63; Warren W. Smith, 1973, Confucianism in Modern Japan, Tokyo: Heian International Publishing; Ian Inkster, 1993, ‘Eikoku to Nihon

no Sangyo Kakurnei ni Okeru Gijutsu Henkaku ni mini Shakaiteiki

Haikei ni tsuite no Hikaku Kento’ (Comparative Treatment of the Context of Technological Change during the Industrial Revolutions of Britain and Japan), in International Institute for Advanced Studies

19.

(eds.), Bunka no Hon’yaku Kanosei, pp. 134-46, Tokyo. Joel Mokyr, 1992, ‘Technological Inertia in Economic History’, The Journal of Economic History, 52(2): 362-81.

Technology in History ™ 7]

20. 21.

A good example is Milton Friedman, 1980, Free to Choose, London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. For a good general survey of issues see R.H. Green, 1974, “The Role of the State as an Agent of Economic and Social Development in the Least Developed Countries’, Journal of Development Planning, 6: 15-

38. 22.

C. Lindblom, 1978, Politics and Markets, New York: Basic Books; 1, Reich, 1992, The Work of Nations, New York: Knopf; M. Staniland,

1985, What is Political Economy? New Haven: Yale University Press; S.

23. 24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

Strange, 1988, States and Markets, London: Pinter. R.A. Roosa, 1972, ‘Russian Industrialists and State Socialism 1906-17’, Soviet Studies, 23: 164-81. Karl Polanyi, 1985 (1944), The Great Transformation, Boston: Beacon

Press. Because of the massive effects of both migration from Europe and expansion of the frontier, the case of North America is not easily placed in a comparative framework, especially with both Europe and East Asia. of For good, brief introductions see J.E. Sawyer, 1954, ‘The Social Basis History, Economic of Journal ing’, Manufactur of System the American 14: 361-79; Peter Temin, 1975, Causal Factors in American Economic Growth in the 19th Century, London: Brill Academic Publishers. Ian Inkster, 1979, ‘Meiji Economic Development in Perspective—Revi Develsionist Comments on the Industrial Revolution in J apan’, The to the oping Economies, 17: 45-68. The term ‘toe-hold’ is in reference did not fact that the tremendous effort of industrialisation in Japan systems. actually improve the rank of Japan amongst other industrial pace with a Rather, the Meiji transformation allowed Japan to keep ng. No rate of industrial change in the Atlantic which was accelerati 1914 between nations of group small relatively ‘new’ nation joined this and the 1950s. old ‘leaders’ Climacteric is being used here to describe a period where al poware losing ground (‘coming of age’), where established industri new nawhere Japan), (e.g., s position ip leadersh over taking ers are S. Korea). The tions are joining the advanced industrial system (e.g., 1870-1914 and two periods in which this has occurred most clearly are

1971 to the present time. ion, Project FR. Bradbury, 1981, ‘Technological Economics: Innovat Science Rey ciplinar Interdis ’, Transfer ogy Technol and Management, views, 6: 151.

29.

30.

31.

Knowledge and TechIan Inkster, 1990, ‘Mental Capital: Transfers of European Economic of Journal , Europe’ nique in Eighteenth Century History, 19: 403-44. National Biography; J. See entry for John Kay in the Dictionary of Spain, Manchester: Harrison, 1978, An Economic History of Modern H. Karmen, 1969, study, nt brillia the and Press sity Manchester Univer

: Indiana University The War of Succession in Spain 1700-15, London 6. r Chapte lly especia Press. See the Continental Powers, C. Trebilcock, 1981, The Industrialisation of ion, p. 31. Educat sional Profes n Pearso : London 1780-1914,

72@

32. 33.

34.

lan Inkster

M.S. Anderson, 1978, Peter the Great, London: Thames and Hudson. F.C. Weber, 1723, The Present State of Russia, London; M.S. Anderson, 1956, ‘Great Britain and the Growth of the Russian Navy in the

18th Century’, Marriner’s Mirror XLIII(2): 132-41. J.M.Crawford (ed.), 1893, The Industries of Russia, Published for the Worlds’ Columbian Exposition, St. Petersburg; P.I. Lyashchenko, 1949, History of the National Economy of Russia, New York: Macmillan; R.P.

35.

Bartlett,

1979, Human

nal Oeconomique]

36.

37.

38.

39.

Capital, The Settlement of Foreigners in

Russia 1762-1804, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ‘Memorial Concerning the Trade of Russia’, in Select Essays [from Jouron Commerce,

Agriculture,

Mines,

Fisheries

and

other Useful Subjects (1754), London: Wilson and Durham, pp. 1-36. Karl Stumpp, 1978, The Emigration from Germany to Russia in the Years 1763-1862, American Historical Society of Germans from Russia,

Nebraska, 1978. In that very short period over 100 kolonii (colonies) were established in Russia, with especial emphasis on settlement on the Volga, near Petersburg, the Black Sea Region and the South Caucasus. War stimulated all such incentive schemes. The movement of Germans especially from Hesse was linked to the Seven Years War (1756— 63) whilst the Russians’ defeat of the Turks (1770s to 1790s) opened up the commercial viability of new, Russian cities such as Odessa and Sebastopol, settled by the new migrants. Bishop Burnet,

1753, History of His Own

Time, vol. III, Edinburgh:

Hamilton, p. 54; Malachy Postlethwayt, 1757, Britain’s Commercial Interest Explained and Improved, vol.II, London: D. Browne and J. Whiston, quote from p. 414. W.O. Henderson, 1972, Britain and Industrial Europe 1750-1850, Chapter 2. Leicester: Leicester University Press.

40.

Baron S. Puffendorf,

41.

and States of Europe to the Year 1743, vol. II, London, pp. 339-40. Enlarged and improved by M. Martinieve and improved from the French by Joseph Sayer, J. and P. Knapton. Inkster, op.cit., (note 6), pp. 304-6; C. Singer, E.J. Holmyard, A.R. Hall

1748, An Introduction to the Principal Kingdoms

and T.J. Williams (eds.), 1958, A History of Technology, Oxford: Oxford

University Press. Especially see volume 4; A.P. Usher, 1954, A History of

Mechanical Inventions, Harvard:

42.

Harvard

University Press; F. Klemm,

1959, A History of Western Technology, London: Allen and Unwin, Trans. by D. Singer. Francois Crouzet, 1985, De la Superiorite de l’Angleterre sur la France, Paris: Perrin; see points made very early on in S. Pollard, 1964, ‘Fixed Capital in the Industrial Revolution’, Journal of Economic History,

24: 299-34.

43.

For excellent recent indicators of the new trends see the editorial introduction and essays by Landes and Mitch in Joel Mokyr (ed.), 1993, The British Industrial

44.

Revolution,

An Economic

Perspective,

Boul-

der: Westview Press. For the Humean perspective see Ian Inkster, 1995, ‘Culture, Action and Institutions: On Exploring the Historical Economic Success of England and Japan’, in P. Gouk (ed.), Wellsprings of Achievement:

Technology in History m 73

Culture and Economic Dynamics in Early Modern England and Japan,

London: Variorum, pp. 239-66. 45. 46. 47.

R. Campbell, article under ‘Merchants’ in his The London Tradesman,

London, 1747. William Hutton, 1781, A History of Birmingham to the Year 1780, Birmingham: Pearson and Rollason, p. 44. ‘Random’ meaning here not that which is inexplicable, but that whose occurrence is not a systematic feature of the phenomenon being centred on. Thus, the plague of the 1660s may be systematically explained, but to a great extent its exact character in, and impact on, London in the 17th and 18th centuries was ‘random’ to the endogenous history of that city.

48.

For the distinction, see B.F. Hoselitz, 1954-55, ‘Generative and Para-

49.

sitic Cities’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 3: 78-94. T. Forster, 1767, An Enquiry into the Causes of the Present High

50. 51.

Price of Provisions, London, p. 41. Postlethwayte, 1757, op.cit, (note 38), quote p. 425.

:

Including both apprenticeship and patenting; on the first see the original insights of Paul Mantoux,

1961, The Industrial Revolution in the

Eighteenth Century, New York: Harper Torchbooks, Revised edition; On the second see the good brief account in Mokyr, op.cit. (note 43), pp.

52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57.

40-43. AE. Musson and Eric Robinson, 1969, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester: Manchester University Press. T.S. Ashton, 1948, The Industrial Revolution 1760-1830, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 16—17. HL. Beales, 1958 (1928), The Industrial Revolution 1750-1850, London: Frank Cass, p. 46. For legislation on road systems see the exhaustive treatments in Chapters 4 and 8 of W.T. Jackman, 1962 (1916), The Development of Transportation in Modern England, London: Frank Cass, revised edition; for government more generally Mokyr, op.cit. (note 43), pp. 43-59. L.P. Brockett, 1876, The Silk Industry in America, New York: The Silk Association of America for the Centennial Exposition. A.F.W. Papillon, 1887, The Papillons of London, Merchants 1623-1702, London;

F. Wamer,

1921, The Silk Industry of the United Kingdom,

London: Drane’s; W.C. Scoville, 1952, ‘The Huguenots and the Diffusion of Technology’, Journal of Political Economy, 60 (1 and 2): 294—

311 and 392-411 respectively.

58.

The Recent accounts include Tessa Murdoch, ‘The Quiet Conquest,

Huguenots 1688-1988’, History Today, 35, Museum of London Exhibition in Association with the Huguenot Society of London. London, May—October

1985; Francois Crouzet, 1991, “The Huguenots

and and the English Financial Revolution’ in P. Higonnet, D. Landes Growth y, Technolog Fortune: of s Favourite H. Rosovsky (eds.), 1991, Economic Development Since the Industrial Revolution, and Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 59.

Introductory Inkster, op. cit. (note 6), Chapter 3; Ian Inkster, 1983,

lis and chapter to Ian Inkster and Jack Morrell (eds.), Metropo

74 @

60.

lan Inkster

Province, Science in British Culture 1780-1850, pp. 11-54. Inkster, ibid., pp. 80-86, 307.

Hutchinson,

London:

McCloskey (1981) in D. McCloskey and R. Floud (eds.), The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, vol. 1700-1860, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 117.

62.

Alexander

63.

cal Perspective: A Book of Essays, Cambridge: Harvard University Press; Inkster, op.cit. (note 6), pp. 139-44. There would be much dispute on this matter. The system—political constraint on late development remains unexplored: see, however, references at notes 11 and 13. Political constraints on industrialising

Gerschenkron,

1962, Economic

Backwardness

in Histori-

Japan are worthy of examination as this case is normally seen as one

of relatively ‘smooth’ politico-industrial transition. On other views see the brilliant early work of E.H. Norman, gathered well in J.W. Dower (ed.), 1975, Origins of the Modern Japanese State, Selected Writings of E.H. Norman, New York: Pantheon. Norman’s great work was originally published in 1940. See also Ian Inkster, 1988, ‘The Other Side of Meiji: Conflict and Conflict Management’, in G. McCormack and Y. Sugimoto (eds.), The Japanese Trajectory: Modernisation and Beyond, pp. 107-28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inkster, op.cit. (note 6), Chapter 4.

Twelfth Report of the Controller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, HMPO,

London,

1895;

Chemist

and Druggist,

22, February

1887, pp. 335-37. Dingler’s Polytechnishes

Journal,

1984, 295:

160-64.

Inkster, op. cit. (note 6), p. 163. Note 63 and Ian Inkster,

1995, “Technology Transfer

and Industrial

Transformation: An Interpretation of the Pattern of Economic

69.

Development circa 1870-1914’, in Robert Fox (ed.), Technological Change, pp. 177-200. Oxford: Harwood. See examples in Trebilock, op.cit. (note 31); Sidney Pollard, 1981, Peace-

ful Conquest, Oxford: Oxford University Press; David Landes,

1969,

The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; P. Bairoch, 1977, The Economic Development of the Third World Since 1900, Berkeley; Inkster, op.cit. (note 6),

70.

Chapter 6. Partitions occurred in the last years of the 18th century, with Russia receiving the large share after Austria and Prussia. Outbreaks against early ‘settlements’ occurred in 1830, 1846, and in Russian-Poland

in

1861 and 1862, and the general resurrection of 1863 was followed by a long period of deliberate Russification. Interestingly, Barrington Moore (op.cit., note 13, p. 438), places Poland as amongst the nations with Hungary (see ahead), which succumbed to endemic authoritarianism due to internal strains created in part during the attempts at accelerated modernisation. Here we have the inkling of a thesis which might quite formally link late development, technology transfers, barriers (as used in the present essay) and long-term political outcomes.

Technology in History Ml 75

ee 72.

73.

The Engineer, 17 June 1887, pp. 478-80. For good general industrial background, see I.T. Berend and G. Ranki, 1974, Hungary, A Century of Economic Development, New York: Barnes and Noble. Technical details are taken from the contemporary expert engineering accounts, ‘Iron and Steel Works—Reschitza,

74.

Hungary’,

The

Engineer, no. 1 (11 January 1884, pp. 23-26), no. II (18 January 1884, pp. 58-59), no. III (1 February 1884, pp. 85-86), no. IV (15 February 1884, pp. 134—35), no. V (29 February 1884, pp. 159-61). The company established an insurance fund from 1860, to which 17,231 members subscribed by the mid-1890s. Members, including those newly arrived from other locations and countries, obtained medical,

75. 76.

retirement, burial and dependents’ benefits. ‘The Hungarian Millennial National Exhibition, The Engineer, 24 July 1896, pp. 76-79.

1896’,

Trebilock, and A. Podkolzin, 1968, A Moscow: Progress Publishers; USSR, the of History Short Economic and the very detailed and authoritative account in T.H. von Laue, See the work of Gerschenkron,

1963, Sergei

TR

Budapest,

Witte and

the Industrialisation

of Russia,

New

York:

Columbia University Press. Inkster. op.cit. (note 68), pp. 187-93. Ibid. The location and techniques were new, the industry was ancient,

located in the Urals especially in government establishments of the 17th century manned by German workers. Peter the Great (Section III of the chapter) greatly encouraged the industry and between 1719 and 1782 approximately 150 ironworks were founded using wood techniques.

To:

See ibid. Where in Europe a blast furnace might be located close to coal and iron, in Russia a single furnace might require an area of some 20,000 acres of forest

80. 81.

for

fuel. For background, see T. Esper, 1982,

‘Industrial Serfdom and Metallurgical Technology in 19th c Russia’, Technology and Culture, 23: 583-608. Original stimulation via tariffs and the railway programme were added, with state privileges and contracts, port expansion and so on. The distinction between improved technology and the technical efficiency great with which a chosen technology is applied is now regarded as of transianalytical importance, especially during phases of great institutional

s, e.g., of tion, such as evidenced in the 19th and 20th century climacteric

chapter. For modern China in the section on the modern climacteric of the

Measurement and recent case studies see M.M. Pitt and L.F. Lee, 1981, ‘The

Industry’, JourSources of Technical Efficiency in the Indonesian Weaving and J.M. Page, nal of Development Economics, 9: 43-64; M. Nishimuzu and Tech1982, ‘Total Factor Productivity Growth, Technological Progress in Yugoslavia nical Efficiency Change: Dimensions of Productivity Change 1965-78’, The Economic Journal, 92: 920-36.

82.

ery were duty Until the 1880s most imports of agricultural machin industry developinfant at effort greater a saw decade that but free, pation of serfs in ment. Although imports varied greatly, the emanci machinery: in 1861 had prompted southern landowners to look to

76 @

lan Inkster

1861 monthly imports of agricultural machinery reached nearly 800,000 roubles. The Engineer, 25 July 1873, p. 51. The Engineer, 11 March 1887, p. 330.

Ibid., 9 April 1897, p. 372. Ibid., 15 February 1895, p. 134. The American machine also performed well at local trials against other foreign machinery. The Engineer, 23 May 1890, p. 421; 9 April 1897, p. 371. See essays by Inkster, Henry, Ambirajan, Tayabji and the editors in Kumar

and MacLeod, op.cit. (note 16); the subject of ‘colonial science’

is now reaching maturity if not a certain plateau and might be investigated through the Science and Empire newsletter, released by National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies

(NISTADS) in New Delhi and Center National Reserche Science (CNRS), Paris. The subject of colonial technology is an awkward one; much is to be found in social and economic historical studies of individual nations or themes, and the subject raises its head frequently in the area of development economics. It may be reasonably argued that a rejuvenation of the history of colonial science requires a firmer or more direct approach to the relations between science and technology. Unfortunately, the rather precious nature of some of the leading work on colonial science, which focusses on ideological and perhaps political functions of exact sciences in the management of colonies, often makes only very indirect inroads into problems associated with technique, even though these were so central to colonial development in the widest of senses. More explicit work on colonial technology has tended to be linked to areas of recent settlement rather than the great colonised regions. For two examples of the former see Ian Inkster, 1993, ‘Intellectual Dependency and the Sources of Invention: Britain and the Australian Technological System in the 19th c’, History of Technology, 12: 40-64; Jan Todd, 1993, ‘Science at the Periphery’, Annals of Science, 50: 33-58.

90. 91.

Japan Weekly Mail, 21 August 1880, p. 1075. Morishima, op.cit. (note 18); M.J. Levy, 1962, ‘Some Aspects of Industrialism and the Problem of Modernisation in China and Japan’, Economic Development and Cultural

Change,

10; W.W.

Lockwood,

1956,

‘Japan’s Response to the West: The Contrast with China’, World Politics, 9.

92.

For a summary only R. Das Gupta, 1970, Problems of Economic Transition, Indian Case Study, Calcutta, pp. 19-23; E.L. Jones, 1981, The

European Miracle, Cambridge. 93.

Walter

94.

London: Penguin, p. 33. For a flavour of Joseph Needham see his 1963, ‘China’s Philosophical

Elkan,

1973, An Introduction

to Development

Economics,

and Scientific Traditions’, Cambridge Opinion, 36; Needham, 1969, The Grand Titration, London: Allen and Unwin, pp. 14—54; for India

see, Irfan Habib, 1980, ‘The Technology and Economy of Mughal India’, Indian Economic

and Social History Review,

17.

Technology in History ™ 77

95.

S.C. Thomas, 1984, Foreign Intervention and China’s Industrial Development 1870-1911, Boulder and London: Westview Press; Joseph Esherik, 1972, ‘Harvard on China: the Apologetics of Imperialism’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 4; F.V. Moulder,

1977, Japan,

China and the Modern World Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; for review as well as decided opinions on India see N. Charlesworth, 1982, British Rule and the Indian Economy 1800-1914. London; Brian Davey, 1975, The Economic Development of India,

Nottingham; E.N. Komarov, 1962, ‘Colonial Exploitation and EKconomic Development’, 2nd International Conference of Economic History, Aix-en-Provence.

96.

For contrasts between Japan, India and China see Inkster, op.cit. (note 6), Chapters 7-9. Ibid. Chapter 7 and Chapter 4 of Tessa Morris—Suzuki, 1994, The Technological Transformation of Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, which gives a refreshing emphasis on trade associations and prefecture activity. : Inkster, op.cit. (note 6), pp. 209-18. D. Thomer,

1957, ‘Great Britain and the Development of India’s Rail-

ways’, Journal of Economic History, 11, M. Mukherjee, 1980, ‘Railways and Their Impact on Bengal’s Economy 1870-1920’, Indian Economic

and Social History Review, 17; and for a brief summary, Inkster, op.cit. (note 16).

Ritter C. von Schwarz, 1882, Report on the Financial Prospects of Iron Working in the Chandra District, Government

101.

102. 103. 104.

105. 106. 107. 108.

109.

of India Central Print-

ing Office, Calcutta, pp. 10-11. See evidence of witnesses, Colonisation and Settlement (India): Report for the Select Committee With Proceedings, 1859, V (Session 1), House of Commons, London, 1859. Example questions on pp. 628-40. Japan Weekly Mail, 30 September 1871, pp. 551-56. W.E.

Griffis,

1980,

The

Mikado’s

Empire.

London,

6th edition.

pp. 601-5. Purchasing of material or equipment was managed through either Crown Agents for the Colonies or by the Agents-General in London working for individual colonies. It is difficult to estimate which channel offered more information, security or choice. In technical matters

the Crown Agents supposedly took the advice of ‘professional experts’. ‘Colonial Contracts’, The Engineer, 17 November 1882, pp. 365-66.

DecemA Manufacturer, ‘Colonial Structural Work’, The Engineer, 20

ber 1901, pp. 621-22. ‘India as a Field for Electrical Enterprise’, The Electrical Review, 51, no. 1290, 15 August 1902, pp. 251-53. ‘Tata Hydroelectric Development: High Head Power Station’, Engineering Record, 68(12) 8 November 1913, pp. 529-31. the Which gives rise to the rather simplistic thesis that one has caused versus Japan as seen often are work at other. Even in 1995 the forces , the Europe and the USA, the greater East Asian edge being neglected The 1979, Chen, Edward See ignored. conflicts across the Atlantic

Hyper-Growth

Economies

of Asia, New York;

R. Hofheinz

and

78 @ lan Inkster

K. Calder, 1982, I'he Kastasia Edge, New York: Basic Books and the more recent Lester Thurow, 1992, Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe and America, New York: William

Morrow and Co. For a good brief analysis see Chapter 7 of Peter L. Berger, 1987, The Capitalist Revolution, Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality and Liberty, London: Wildwood House. See also Ian Inkster, 1991, ‘Made in America but Lost to

Japan: Science, Technol-

ogy and Economic Performance in the Two Capitalist Superpowers’, Social Studies of Science, 21: 157-78. 110.

As an example,

ele

nology and Management to the ASEAN Countries, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Eshun Hamaguchi and the Research Project Team for Japanese Sys-

S. Yamashita

tems, 1992, Japanese Ltd., Yokohama.

112.

113.

(ed.), 1991, Transfer of Japanese

Systems, An Alternative

Civilisation?

Tech-

Sekotac

The alternative argument is that such high utility elements are outcomes of an institutional complex, more or less invented after 1945 and very much under the auspices of SCAP and the American advisors in Japan. Ironically, then, it can be put that MITI, enterprise unions

and the market structure of modern industries emerged out of institutional reforms created in Japan by western powers between 1947 and 1952, which aided and abetted the long-term growth impacts of such other western inputs as advanced technology, procurement and Korean War expenditures and so on. H. Patrick and L. Meissner (eds.), 1986, Japan’s High Technology Industries, London and Tokyo: University of Washington Press; K. Yamamura and Y. Yasuba (eds.), 1987, The Political Economy of Japan, vol. 1: The Domestic Transformation, Stanford: Stanford University Press; J. Vestal, 1993, Planning for Change, Oxford: Clarendon Press; M.V. Brock, 1989, Biotechnology in Japan, London: Routledge; Ian Inkster, 1990, ‘Promethean Futures: The Bio-

technological Challenge Review, 14(1I): 129-34. 114.

and the Japanese

Model’, Asian

Studies

For such features as displayed increasingly in the professional or training business literature see V. Tersptra, 1987, The Cultural Environment of International Business, 6th edition, Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing; P.R. Cateora, 1987, International Marketing, 6th edition, Homewood Illinois: Irwin; C.T. Selvarajah and K. Cutbush-Sabine (eds.), 1991, International Business, Melbourne:

115.

Longman Cheshire. See note 113 and L.M. Ducharme and F. Gault, 1992, ‘Surveys of Advanced Manufacturing Technology’, Science and Public Policy, 27; J. Northcott, 1986, Microelectronics in Industry: Promise and Performance, London: Policy Studies Institute; I. Mackintosh, 1986, Sunrise Europe, Oxford: Blackwell; S. Cohen and J. Zysman,

116.

1987, Manufac-

turing Matters. New York: Basic Books. Early success in the NICs was frequently explained in terms of transfers of technology into those relatively labour-using, lowertechnology industries that were seeming less competitive in advanced

Technology in History Ml 79

systems, especially due to high and rising labour costs, spatial and production problems. Japan was seen as an earlier exemplar. 117.

F. Bar, M. Borrus, S. Cohen, J. Zysman and the Berkeley Roundtable

on the International Economy, April 1989. ‘The Evolution and Growth Potential of Electronics-Based Technologies’, Science, Technology and Industry Review, OECD,

118.

1197 120.

Paris, No. 5, p. 9.

G. Vickery, April 1989, ‘Recent Developments in the Consumer Electronics Industry’, Science, Technology and Industry Review, OECD, Paris, No. 5, pp. 113-28. For a summary see Chapter 5 of Thurow, op.cit. (note 109).

Lester See in particular Inkster (op.cit., note 109); M.L. Dertouzos, R.K. MIT Press; and R. Solow, 1989, Made in America, Cambridge Mass.: Change in Ian Inkster, 1993, ‘Education, Human Capital and Technical

Japan—A Sceptical Evaluation’, East Asia, 6: 99-110.

121. 122. 123.

Bar, op. cit. (note 117), quote from p. 43. , UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report, 1987, UNCTAD

New York; Paris. OECD, 1988, The Newly Industrialising Countries, OECD, tive Compara Shifting and ogy ‘Technol 1992, Wilhelm Kurth, April Advantage’,

Science

Technology

and Industry Review,

OECD

Paris,

No. 10, pp. 8-47, quote from p. 27.

124.

125.

126.

127.

g Role of MNEs in J.H. Dunning and J.A. Cantwell, 1986, ‘The Changin

ogy’, paper prethe International Creation and Transfer of Technol on, Venice; H. Diffusi ion Innovat on nce sented to Venice Confere r; The Technical Enterprise, Cambridge Mass.: Ballinge Fusfield, 1986, Lexington on: Lexingt , Ventures Joint ional Internat K.J. Hiadik, 1984, Coming Shape of Global Books; K. Ohmae, 1985, Triad Power: The

Competition, New York: Free Press. International TechnolG. Vickery, December 1988, ‘A Survey of ry Review, OECD. Indust and logy Techno , Science ng’. Licensi ogy Paris, No. 4. pp. 8-50. rs 2, 3 and 7 of A. For an introductory answer see especially Chapte ing Economies rialis Indust Newly The 1993, Islam, Chowdury and I. of East Asia, London: Routledge. mance and its social and For important summaries of China’s perfor Step Ahead in China, One 1989, Vogel, geographical locations see Ezra Boston:

Harvard

University Press; Gordon White,

1993, Riding the

in Post-Mao China, London: Tiger: The Politics of Economic Reform The Geography of Contem1990, Macmillan; T. Cannon and A. Jenking, D. Wall and Mingyuan ku, Fukasa K. dge; Routle : porary China, London

128.

129.

130.

Economy, OECD Paris. Wu, 1994, China’s Long Road to the Open Economic Superpower, Next The China, 1993, lt, Overho H. William China-

Yun-wing, 1991, The London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson; Sung Press.

idge University Hong Kong Connection, Cambridge: Cambr 1202 per cent, Beijing at at grew hai Shang In the years 1985-1991 ding to the State Statisaccor 959 per cent, and Tianjin at 697 per cent . tical Yearbook (1992) ology transfers and overseas The thesis here is that the vast techn direct long-term response to a are e decad last the investments in the reforms of 1978-85, the plus c general forces of the climacteri

80 @ lan Inkster

latter centred on the special zones proximate to the expatriate Chinese economies.

131.

132.

133.

134.

For the technological system of China at the period of reform see Jan Inkster, 1989, ‘Appropriate Technology, Alternative Technology and the Chinese Model: Terminology and Analysis’, Annals of Science, 46: 263-76. Although by 1993 China was yet only 13th amongst the importers from the USA, China was 2nd only behind Japan among nations holding USA trade deficits. David Bloor, 1984, ‘The Sociology of Reasons, or Why ‘Epidemic Factors’ Are Really “Social Factors” in J.R. Brown (ed.), Scientific Rationality: The Sociological Turn, pp. 295-324, Dordrecht: D. Reidel; Charles Webster, 1975, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform~ 1626-1660, New York: Holmes and Meier. David Bloor, 1982, ‘Durkheim and Mauss Revisited: Classification and the Sociology of Knowledge’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 13: 276-98.

135.

136. 137. 138.

H.M. Collins, 1985, Changing Order, Beverly Hills: Sage; Bruno Latour and S. Woolgar, 1979, Laboratory Life, New Jersey: Princeton University Press; Michael Lynch, 1985, Art and Artefact in Laboratory Science, London: Routledge; Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump, New Jersy: Princeton University Press. John Stuart Mill, 1871, Principles of Political Economy, 7th ed. The quote is from Book I, Chapter 7, p. 100. Ibid., pp. 100-103. Karl Marx,

1853, ‘Future Results of British Rule in India’, New

York

Daily Tribune, 8 August, p. 4. 139.

Karl Marx,

1857, ‘The Indian Revolt’, New

York Daily Tribune,

16

September (unsigned, written September 4). 140.

Karl Marx, 1853, “The British Rule in India’, New York Daily Tribune, 25 June (written from London, 10 June).

141.

‘Karl Marx to N.F. Danielson’, London, 19 February 1881, letter reproduced in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels on Britain. 1962. Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, p. 557.

142.

S. Avineri,

143.

York: Anchor Books, p. 444, citing Marx in Critique Economy (1859). For a brief account see pp. 182-84 Spence, 1990, The Search for Modern China, New York: Reverse salients being derived for the work of Rosenberg

144.

See, for example, Hughes in note 5. See notes 12-13, 64 and the various hints at political outcomes of late

145.

146.

1969, Karl Marx on Colonialism

and Modernisation,

New

of Political of Jonathon Norton. and Hughes.

development in the work of Alexander Gerschenkron, and D. Senghaas, 1985, The European Experience, Leamington Spa: Berg Publishers. Karl Polanyi, 1994, The Great Transformation, Boston: Beacon Press; Douglass North, 1991, ‘Institutions’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(I): 116-29. The Indonesian coup of September 1965 is, of course, variously interpreted, often from the point of view of short-term factors such as the

Technology in History @ 8] passing character of the communist party, the armed forces and so on. On the other hand, it is generally agreed that the years following 1965 were characterised by a rise of the managing technocrats, development planning and increased technological and industrial growth. At the time of the coup the foreign debt had reached US $2 billion and interest on it exceeded Indonesia’s total export revenues. Geertz emphasised the seeming lack of any cultural trajectory for Indonesian politics, the absence of ‘design’, surely one feature of the political outcome of the early phase of very late development, where ‘responses’ are required at a number of levels and where institutional structures become divorced or removed from underlying or traditional assumptions and understandings. See Clifford Geertz, 1972, ‘Afterword: The Politics of Meaning’, in C. Holt (ed.), Culture and Politics in Indonesia,

Ithaca: Cornell University Press, especially p. 319; Richard Robison, 1986, Indonesia: The Rise of Capital, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, including an account of earlier colonial—late development years (pp. 3— 35); K. Hewison, R. Robinson and G. Rodan (eds.), 1993, Southeast Asia in the 1990s: Authoritarianism, Democracy and Capitalism, Sydney: Allen & Unwin; Hal Hill (ed.), 1993, Indonesia’s New Order: The Dynamics of Socio-Economic Transformation, Sydney: Allen &

Unwin. 147. 148.

Susan Strange,

1994, States and Markets, 2nd ed., London: Pinter.

Given the industrial drive of Japan prior to 1914 it is possible to argue that no national economy joined the ‘winners’ within the capitalist world. In the absence of Soviet hegemony in eastern Europe it is still doubtful whether systems such as Hungary would have generally industrialised in the first half of the 20th century. China remained riddled with western influence and internal strife, and the economic

and industrial growth of the 1950s was based on massive technology transfers

149.

from Russia, yet did not seem

to generate, at that time,

diffused industrialisation and increased technical efficiencies. George Basalla, 1988, The Evolution of Technology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. However, any book that includes in its conclusion that (p. 208) ‘Fire, the stone axe, or the wheel are no more items

of absolute necessity than are the trivial gadgets that gain popularity for a season and quickly disappear’ might be viewed sceptically: the treatment of India (e.g., p.81) illustrates the limitations of the approach.

82

lan Inkster

GLOSSARY climacteric has been used by historians to suggest crucial phases of national development, following ancient notions of the ages of man. Applied to modern global development, the notion of climacteric is relevant to the two periods circa 1870-1914, and 1970 to the present, when a single leadership has been challenged by more than one strongly rising industrial economy, the emergence of new institutions, and the dominance of a new technological paradigm.

conjuncture, here borrowing liberally from the French Annales school, especially the mega-historian Fernand Braudel, meaning an identifiable or characteristic period between the very long-term and the individual and local moment or happening. Seen here as containing an overall dynamic which is the compound of a conjunction of forces, any one or some of which might be long-term in their nature: a conjuncture may therefore embrace both contingency and causation.

credenda, generally those things which are to be believed, and here serving to stand for matters of faith. disjunction, herein a break which is in important respects genuinely discontinuous or even contradictory, relatively sudden and unexpected. historicism has several meanings, but here refers to that style of analysis or presentation which explains or defines the essence of a phenomenon or agency in terms of its past development. historiography, beyond bibliography, is utilised here to mean the conceptual or even philosophical basis upon which a piece of historical text is constructed. machinofacture, a term used by Marx and other classical writers tc identify the essence of workshop manufacture, amongst which was high skill, independence, competition in a shared information culture, batch production, and the predominance of metallurgy, machining, heavy machinery, precision tools, and inorganic chemicals. Here the term includes the above but specifically identifies the culture of innovation and incremental improvement associated with artisanal patenting and experimentation. Thus, machinofacture is both an organised process and a commercial asset to any advanced system, this latter char-

Technology in History m 83

acteristic inhibiting the transfer of techniques from advanced sites to follower sites of production.

problematique, a term often used somewhat pretentiously. Here simply indicating a coherent problem area, the boundaries of which may be identified on technical and conceptual grounds. Rostovian ‘propensities’, initially and extensively used by W.W. Rostow in his classic volume, The Process of Economic Growth (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1953), and visualised as alternative categories to a Marxist analysis of history. Designed also to provide a bridge between social and economic factors, the six propensities were: to develop fundamental science, to apply science to economic aims, to accept innovations, to seek material advance, to consume, to have children. Together, these propensities ‘summarize the effective response of a society to its environment, at any period of time, acting through its existing institutions and leading social groups; and they reflect the underlying value system effective within that society.’

statist, meaning here an agency which derives its power, legitimacy and finance from association with a central sovereign state. It may lie outside the government and is to be distinguished from private sector or enterprise agency. In systems such as that of modern Japan, such distinctions are blurred.

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Transplanting Technology: Iwo Episodes in Japanese History HiROSH! SATO

s of In the history of Japan there have been two mighty episode China and technological invasion from abroad. One was from Korea the in the Asuka—Nara period around the 5th—8th centuries, and cases both In other from western countries about 150 years ago. and the Japanese absorbed or digested the ‘invading’ technologies In levels. s’ improved upon them, to finally surpass their teacher epin this chapter I propose to describe these two transplantatio be can ring enginee r whethe discuss end, the at sodes, and shall, similarly transplanted in today’s developing countries.

THe Wave FROM Korea AND CHINA

HIisTORY sary to first sketch To place these episodes in context, it is neces eering point of view. briefly the history of Japan from the engin inhabitants of the More than 10,000 years ago, the original us routes from North Japan Islands arrived there through vario other over a period of and South Asia. They mixed with each race. In the process they time and formed the original Japanese of life and culture. By way created their own language, religion, and fishing. e and large, the people lived on agricultur established in 21 Bc, was In China, the mighty Han Empire

science and engineering, and soon Chinese culture, including

86 Mf Hiroshi Sato

flourished. A great technological gap between China and Japan however became obvious. Although the Korean Peninsula is close to Japan, the 200 km wide Tsushima Strait hampered the largescale migration of people and transfer of technology. In 108 Bc the northern half of Korea was occupied by the Han and later became a colony of the Han Empire. It remained so until ap 313. The massive flow of Chinese culture to Korea took place during this period. Figure 2.1 shows a map of Japan, Korea and east China in the 4th century during which time Japan comprised more than a hundred small kingdoms. It was around ap 400 that there emerged a powerful emperor who unified Japan by conquering all these small kingdoms. This was the beginning of the Asuka period of Japanese history. Succeeding emperors were anxious to import engineering from Korea to strengthen their position.

KOKULI

r

7 °Pyongyang

Figure 2.1

Map of Japan, Korea and eastern part of China in the 4th century

Transplanting Technology: Two Episodes in Japanese History i 87

Chinese characters and arts were adopted; gigantic tombs were constructed and big ships built. Japanese troops were sent to Korea on a substantial scale around ap 400 to fight against the three great Korean countries—Kolai, Paekcha and Shilla—all of whom were defeated. This event showed the power of unified Japan. After the war, international travel and trade increased sharply. The three Korean countries, especially Paekcha, sent various professional people to Japan including scholars, interpreters, painters, carpenters, potters, founders and many other craftsmen. They contributed greatly to the transplantation of engineering in Japan. Buddhism came to Korea in AD 372, then to Japan in AD 552. The direct flow of Korean engineering into Japan—and the indirect flow of Chinese engineering through Korea—increased year after year. There were two reasons for this. One was the prevailing social unrest in the Korean Peninsula and in China. Wars among the three big countries in Korea continued, and many local wars occurred in east China after the fall of the Han Empire in ap 220. A large number of the refugees that these wars left behind sought peaceful lives in Japan. The other reason was that the immigrants, who had largely come in groups, were welcomed and offered land by the Japanese government. They settled down in various places and raised wealthy families. They often occupied important positions in the local and central are governments. About 400 places for newcomers before AD 700 China, from came them of half recorded in history books. About

of a third from Paekcha and the rest from various other districts indiand direct how of Korea. This record is a clear indication rect waves of Chinese engineering reached Japan. Formal diplomatic relations between Japan and China were sent an established in AD 607 when the Japanese government ing of beginn the g embassy to the Chinese Sui court, markin Tang and 618 ap in formal trade with China. Although Sui fell China and Japan took over, diplomatic relations between

e continued. The Japanese government offered the Chines domestic products, and the Tang in return tech’ products like bronze mirrors and steel government officials, scholars and Buddhist China and absorbed Chinese culture. These

gave many ‘highswords. Japanese monks stayed in friendly relations

88 @ Hiroshi Sato

lasted until AD 663 when the allied forces of Japan and Paekcha fought against Shilla which was supported by Tang. The allied forces lost the final war, the Japanese army retreated and Paekcha fell. Thus began the exodus of the Paekcha people, and the last great flow of engineers from Korea to Japan. The imported technologies quickly ripened in Japan. The Horyu-ji (ji means temple), built in AD 607, is one of the oldest wooden buildings in the world. Many other Buddhist temples were built during this time, but all of them except Horyu-ji were burnt down during their long history. Around Ap 694 the new capital Fujiwara-kyo (kyo means capital), a dead copy of the Zhangan capital of Tang China, was built. Sixteen years later, in AD 623, Heijyo-kyo (the Nearby Capital), also very similar to the Zhangan Capital, was completed; it marked the beginning of the Nara period. However, 50 years later, when the Todai-ji was built, it housed a bronze Great Buddha, 16.2 m in height, ordered by Emperor Shomu himself as a demonstration of his faith in Buddhism. The Buddha was designed, cast and polished in Japan. There was no bronze Buddha of this size in Korea or China. Bronze coins were first minted in Ap 708. Here it can be observed that the imported metal processing technique was absorbed and further improved to a higher level by the Japanese. As Buddhism became popular among the people because of the imperial support it received, and as the nobility vied with each other over building their own temples, imported Chinese literature gradually permeated Japanese society and the upper class Japanese acquired a good command over Chinese characters. The Nara period is one of the golden ages in Japanese history. A poet once wrote in admiration, ‘Nara is at the peak of prosperity as all blossoms are in full bloom’. The Nara period lasted 170 years, untill AD 794 when the capital was shifted to the new Heian-kyo (Kyoto). Although relations with Korea and China gradually improved, no further massive flow of engineering took place, because the Japanese no longer needed to import engineering. Engineers from Korea and China thus settled down and mixed with the Japanese, and in due course of time lost their original identities.

Transplanting Technology: Two Episodes in Japanese History ll 89

This is one typical example of transplantation of engineering in Japanese history when imported engineering was first absorbed and then improved upon considerably. Given in the following discussion is a more detailed description of the developments in some disciplines of engineering during this period.

ARCHITECTURE The immigration of a group of Shilla naval architects is recorded in history books. At that time ships were built using wood, a material which they had become very skilful at handling. They also brought with them advanced cutting tools, but the imported technology had to be modified since the materials available in Japan were not similar and the environmental conditions were also different. The material used for constructing buildings in Japan was exclusively Japanese wood since buildings had to endure against the heavy rains and strong winds of Japanese typhoons. The Horyu-ji shown in Figure 2.2 is registered as a world heritage site like the Pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of

Figure 2.2

Sketch of Horyu-Ji

90

Hiroshi Sato

China. The ji covers 187,000 square metres and consists of seven buildings including Kondo (the main building), a lecture hall, a five-storey tower, a belfry and a library, all of which are well designed and constructed with precision. Although the design seems to have originated from China through Korea, many modifications were made to adapt it to suit Japanese tastes and environment. The building material used in the Horyu-ji is Japanese cypress, which grows only in Japan and is the best material for long-lasting buildings. However, in order to use it correctly one must know how the material behaves over long periods of time. Korean carpenters, therefore, had to work with their Japanese counterparts who had inherited the traditional technique of handling the wood. It is a well known fact that buildings made from cypress constantly change their size and shape, and settle down only after about 100 years. The designer of the Horyu-ji seems to have taken into account such changes. After the Horyu-ji, many large and beautiful temples including the famous Toushoudai-ji and Yakushi-ji were built. These constructions synchronised with the popularisation of Buddhism. The styles of such temples are full of variety, but eventually an authentic Japanese style architecture was established.

Civit ENGINEERING The large-scale construction works undertaken in the period chiefly comprised tombs and capitals. From Ap 300 to 600 many big tombs were built, mostly in central Japan, for emperors, princes and high government officials. The exact number of the tombs constructed is unknown, but at least 500 have been found so far. Initially, these tombs were small in size with the design of each tomb being different. Eventually, however, the design of the tombs converged into one unique style called ‘square front and round back’. Western scholars call them ‘key-hole tombs’, because of their shape in plan (i.e., as seen from above). In these tombs mud was piled in the central part and a trench dug around the tomb and filled with water. Construction work during this period reached its peak with the completion of Nintoku-ryo around ap 440. This tomb was

Transplanting Technology: Two Episodes in Japanese History Ml 91

named after Emperor Nintoku (whose existence has been questioned). Figure 2.3 shows an aerial view of the ryo. The circumference of the tomb is 1.4 km, the total area it covers is 150,000

square metres and the maximum height of the tomb is 40 metres. In terms of area this is one of the largest tombs in the world. Tombs of comparative size were built for succeeding emperors almost every 20 years, usually at enormous expense in terms of money and labour. For instance, in the construction of the Nintoku-ryo at least 3 million cubic metres of soil was moved; i.e., 1,000 cubic metres of soil a day over a period of 10 years. More than 10,000 peasants must have been at work to accomplish this task. The tombs were, thus, a symbol of power.

Figure 2.3

Aerial view of Nintoku-Ryo

No tombs of this style and size have been found either in is China or in Korea to date. Clearly, the design of Nintoku-ryo ement original, and is representative of yet another high achiev of Japanese engineering. The second kind of big project was the construction of a capiof tal. Ancient Chinese capitals were constructed in the shape

92 @ Hiroshi Sato

an exact square with roads crossing each other perpendicularly. When Japanese delegates saw these capitals, they were impressed by their geometric beauty and decided to build a similar capital in Japan. At that time each emperor in Japan chose his (or her) own site as the capital. However, as the site was frequently changed, a big capital was never built. The construction work for the first ever established capital, Fujiwara-kyo, started around aD 690. The capital covered an area which was 3.1 km in the south-north and 2.1 km in the east-west direction. It is the exact replica of a Chinese capital, barring the inclusion of a place for a ceremony of Japanese or1gin. For some unknown reason the capital was abandoned after 16 years of inhabitation. Despite the eventual abandonment of this project, it provided the Japanese engineers with valuable experience for the construction of another new capital, Heijyo-kyo at Nara. The construction of Heijyo-kyo was completed in ap 710 after four years of work. The area of this capital is three times that of Fujiwara-kyo; a rough sketch is shown in Figure 2.4. The layout of the kyo is a NORTH

IMPERIAL

BST

p ee

= f sy

YAKUSHI-JL i

: ae sae ANS

a Cocco ont CoOnoOooD on ; J SOUTH

Figure 2.4

Plan of Heijyo-Kyo

Transplanting Technology: Two Episodes in Japanese History @ 93

square grid pattern with nine major streets running from north to south and ten running from east to west. The biggest street, Suzaku-ohji (ohji means wide street), is 74 metres wide. The emperor’s palace was built at the northern end of the street. It had more than 10 huge buildings in it, used for various ceremonies and daily administrative work which had increased sharply during this period. These large buildings consisted of several thick round wooden columns located on stone bases, supporting the tiled roofing. The houses for common people mainly consisted of wooden columns stuck directly into the ground and straw roofing. About 8,000 officials worked in the palace. An interesting point of the Heijyo-Kyo is that, unlike the capitals of other countries, it is not surrounded by thick walls. It is, instead, an open city. The reason for this is not clear, but one explanation offered is that the emperor at the time was so powerful that there was no need for him to plan against any attacks by a formidable enemy. The population of the kyo is estimated to have been as much as 200,000 at the end of the 8th century.

STONE AND EARTHENWARE Isolation from the rest of the world resulted in the Japanese remaining in the Stone Age for a long time. They thus developed their own stoneware engineering, chiefly along two lines. One was in stone cutting: hard stones meant not only for use at home, but also as heads of spears and arrows. Products in obsidian, a hard and sharp-edged stone, have been found in many places. The other direction stone cutting took was ornaments; people used hard jade for rings, necklaces, bracelets etc. Drilling a hole through thick hard jade was done using a unique technique. One peculiar product of the time was the curved jewel: many examples have been unearthed everywhere in Japan. The reason why such jewels were curved is not known, but a high quality curved jewel is one of three imperial regalia (the other two being a steel sword and a bronze mirror). The origin of primitive earthenware in Japan is fairly old. Vases, pots and other earthenware for home use were produced

94 i Hiroshi Sato

at relatively low temperatures. The method of decorating earthenware by pressing straw ropes on the surface is known as ‘rope-pattern pottery’. This unique technique was very popular everywhere in Japan. Advanced techniques imported from Korea and China enabled pottery to be made with a smooth surface and delicate shapes. As the available temperature of furnaces became higher, gradually harder and stronger wares were produced. Turntables were imported in the 5th century and this enabled the mass production of earthenware, although their artistic value was not very high when compared with that of the rope-patterns. Japan had to wait several hundred years before it could produce pure white, colourful and high-temperature pottery. An interesting form of original earthenware from Japan is haniwa, which consists of earthen figures usually buried around the graves of emperors and high-ranking officials. Ancient Japanese practised the traditional custom of following their masters to the grave, but when this terrible custom was abandoned the followers were replaced by haniwas. A haniwa starts as a thin-shell cylinder, and variations are added to form various figures such as warriors, animals and houses.

BRONZE PRODUCTS The history of copper in Japan began with the import of bronze products from China, especially swords and mirrors, from around the beginning of the Christian Era to ap 300. With improvement in casting techniques in Japan, the import of products also gradually changed to the import of copper. Later, with encouragement from the government, the refinement of copper ore within Japan also started at various places, as rich copper ore was freely available within the country. Records of the production of tin are also found in Japanese history. The use of bronze as material for practical tools however was short-lived because the much stronger iron (steel) soon appeared. In the 4th century Japan once again started work in bronze by casting exact replicas of bronze mirrors originally imported from China. Most of these mirrors were round and had

Transplanting Technology: Two Episodes in Japanese History Ml 95

decorative carvings in the back. The diameter of the largest mirror of those times is about 30 cm. The Japanese like mirrors, and introduced Japanese-style decorations on them. Shortly after they started making mirrors their technology surpassed that of the Chinese, and emperors gave highly decorative mirrors to local rulers as symbols of authority. Mirrors were also considered to possess divine powers. Japanese history has detailed records of mirror-making. In ap 762 Todai-ji asked founders to produce four mirrors, of 30 cm

diameter and 1.5 cm thickness each. The founders in turn asked for various materials including 40 kg of copper, 4 kg of tin, 60 gm of iron powder and 700 gm of wax for polishing. For producing one piece of mirror, five founders with five assistants spent four days in preparing the mould, two days for casting and 14 days for polishing. The manufacture of decorative mirrors eventually ended in the 10th century. Another unique bronze product in Japan during the time was the bell. Although primitive bells were made in Korea and China as well, the Japanese bells are much larger and more refined. A large number of bells have been unearthed in Japan, particularly in central Japan. They were all made by casting. The sizes of the bells vary, from 10 to 170 cm in height, but the thickness is almost always about 3 mm regardless of height. The biggest bell weighs 45 kg. The casting of a bronze bell so thin proves the superior technological level achieved in Japan during the time. The surface of the bells was decorated with geometrical patterns, houses, men and Figure 2.5 shows a animals. bronze bell with water vortices on the surface. The bells were originally used Figure 2.5 A bronze bell for their sound, but gradually

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lost this original purpose and began to be used for religious services. For reasons unknown all bells were suddenly abandoned and buried underground around ap 800. The Great Buddha of Nara is 16 metres high and weighs 380 tons, and is one of the biggest casting works ever executed in the world. The production project was started in ap 745, and the work, including casting, scraping, polishing and gold plating, was completed in ap 774. The project consumed 500 tons of copper, 8.5 tons of tin and 150 kg of gold, collected from various districts in Japan. The casting was done in several stages. It started from the seat of the Buddha moving gradually to the head with piles of soil around the mould. After the mould and soil were removed a great hall was built for housing the Buddha. This is the Todai-ji. (The Buddha we see in Nara at present however is not the original product but a close replica.) The high-level of bronze-casting technology developed in Japan at the time is demonstrated in this project.

IRON PRODUCTS The original iron produced in Japan came from ‘iron sand’, a mixture of fine particles of iron oxide and sand found in many places in the country. The quality of iron in early times in Japan was low compared with that produced in Korea or China, and a large amount of iron was imported. However with the widespread use of farm tools tipped with imported iron points, the productivity of agriculture increased dramatically resulting in a remarkable increase of population and the stratification of Japanese society into two distinct classes: the rulers and the ruled. Arms like swords, spears, axes and arrow heads made from iron were also imported and they immediately drove out the less powerful bronze arms. Wood-working tools made of steel were welcomed by carpenters, and with their arrival planing and dowel work became possible. The Horyu-ji was built using such tools. The refinement of iron on a considerable scale only started in the 6th century. The advanced technique for doing this was learned from Chinese and Korean engineers and was improved

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upon when high-temperature furnaces using high-quality charcoal with powerful blowers became available. History books bear testimony to the fact that the Japanese government presented 20 pieces of raw iron to Paekcha in ap 642: this proves that the quality of Japanese iron had reached Korean levels by then. Iron sand is almost completely free from the impurities that normally degrade the quality of iron, and the steel production using it was successful and improved upon over time. Sharp steel swords were produced from iron sand by heavy forging. In fact, a steel sword was part of imperial regalia. The sharp and beautiful Nihon-tou (Japanese sword) was produced hundreds of years later.

FLOw OF EUROPEAN ENGINEERING

HistoRICAL SKETCH After catching up with Chinese and Korean technology Japanese engineers developed their own technology thereby stemming the massive import of engineering that was taking place, although sporadic interactions with Chinese and Korean engineers continued. The import of engineering to Japan from Europe started around 1540 when a Portuguese boat arrived at a southern Japanese island. At the time the political state of Japan was very turbulent: there was no strong central government, and a large number of feudal lords fought with each other all the time. The Portuguese boatmen introduced rifles to the Japanese, who were so impressed by their power, that Japanese blacksmiths immediately started manufacturing them. The Portuguese crew stayed in Japan for several months,

during which time 600

limited rifles were produced. When the Portuguese returned to the local government Oita-han in Kyushu Island 13 years later they found that the han (which is a domain governed by a feudal lord) kept 30,000 Japanese-made guns in the armoury. Moreover, those rifles had been improvised so as to fit the shorter Japanese soldiers. Rifles played an important role in the power struggle

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at that time. This story shows how the Japanese people were quick in recognising the importance of new products and imitating them. This encounter with the Portuguese, however, did not lead to full-scale import of western engineering. The powerful Hideyoshi, who unified Japan in 1590, was reluctant to open trade with western countries or to allow any missionary work in Japan. When Tokugawa seized power in the early 17th century after Hideyoshi, the policy of the new government was much stricter. Foreign trade and travel were prohibited and Christianity was totally banned: indeed Christians were arrested and executed. Only Holland was allowed to carry on small-scale trade at the western-most harbour, Nagasaki, which became a small window open to the West. This policy of closing Japan to the rest of the world had two sides to it. On the one hand, it enabled Japan to prevent colonisation by European powers and to develop its own culture without external intervention. On the other, Japan could not keep in touch with advanced western engineering. The Tokugawa government wanted to maintain its authority by banning new engineering developments. Although the arts, literature and handicrafts flourished under the Tokugawa, there was no substantial progress in technology. The genuine import of European engineering only began in the final stages of the Tokugawa Era. By the end of the 18th century, Russian and American ships arrived at many Japanese ports pushing them hard to open their harbours for trade. At first the government tried to continue its closeddoor policy, but soon realised that that would be difficult because of the overwhelming power of the West. In 1854 a treaty on trade was concluded between Japan and USA, followed by treaties with other western powers. A strong inflow of western civilisation into Japan thus began. The Japanese government started modernisation in all areas by inviting western advisers. Unlike the practice during the Chinese-Korean episode 1,500 years earlier, the term of stay of western advisers now was limited, usually from one to 10 years, and they were not assimilated with the Japanese people. Every western country tried to exert its influence on Japan by sending as many engineers as possible.

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As the power of the Tokugawa declined, a struggle with the emperor began, ending in the Meiji Restoration of 1868. This event accelerated the import of western engineering, but the situation was not simple. For instance, France had backed the Tokugawa in the struggle for power with the emperor, and so faced a difficult time negotiating with the new government. The Meiji government tried to avoid giving a position of overwhelming influence to any specific foreign country. At first the Meiji government intended to develop industries under its own direct control but later changed its policy and encouraged private enterprise with heavy financial support. Most western engineers were attracted by the high salaries offered, but since some of them loved Japan they contributed to its development by giving their best. Industry developed rapidly and people’s lifestyle changed. A popular slogan at the time was: ‘rich country, strong military’. In fact, Japan won three wars in quick succession: with China in 1894-96, with Russia in 1904-5, and then World War I. These victories accelerated the development of both light and heavy industry in Japan. Seventy years after the Meiji Restoration the Japanese government believed that its military power, with the backing of its own engineering, was strong enough to declare the Second World War. Unfortunately, however, Japanese engineering had many weak points. Civil engineering to build airbases is one example: the Japanese Army had no construction machinery, everything had to be done manually. Another was electronics including radar technology. The Japanese aircraft industry could not produce fighters in sufficient numbers to defend the country from the US air raids. During the war many engineers were engaged in the production of airplanes. After the defeat of 1945, the general headquarters of the allied forces prohibited aeronautical research and production in Japan. This was fortunate for the Japanese for it provided them the opportunity for reorganising an aircraft industry that had swelled to an abnormal size. Aeronautical en-

gineers scattered into various other fields of technology and worked hard for the recovery of other industries ruined _ by war. They again started with import of western technology, one of the most important being quality control. Before the war

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Japanese products used to be ‘low price and low quality’, but by an intense effort in quality control, they soon became ‘low price and high quality’. The developments in various fields of engineering are discussed ahead.

ARCHITECTURE In the Meiji Era many architects were invited from various countries in Europe, and were asked by the Japanese government to design European-style buildings. This initiative provided Japanese architects with an opportunity to learn new design and construction techniques. However, in the process, all building materials, including brick, cement and steel, had to be imported. This was also extraordinarily expensive, because of the materials having to be transported across long distances from Europe. This in turn accelerated domestic production for such materials. In 1875, Portland cement was produced for the first time in Japan. Many brick buildings were constructed in Japan during the time but frequent earthquakes revealed their weakness. Western designers thought that brick buildings reinforced by steel rods would be strong enough to withstand these earthquakes, but an intense earthquake near Tokyo in 1923 destroyed most of them. Since then no big brick buildings have been planned in Japan. This is a good example of how engineering must fit the environment in which it is practiced. On the other hand the Tokyo earthquake also proved the robustness of steel-reinforced concrete, which was first used in

a Japanese building in 1895. This type of structure thereafter became the mainstream for all construction work. The style of traditional Japanese houses is very different from that of European houses. There have been many attempts to mix the two styles, but they have all failed. What we find in Japan now is an extremely small number of traditional houses, or an ugly mixture of the two styles, or completely Europeanstyle houses. This tells us that mixing different architectural traditions is extremely difficult.

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SHIPBUILDING The building of big ships had been prohibited by the Tokugawa government in order to prevent overseas trade and travel, as a result of which the Japanese lost the chance of sailing the oceans despite being good sailors. The Japanese were thus surprised by the side-wheel steamers of the American fleet that appeared off Tokyo in 1853. The frequent visits of European fleets to Japan made the Tokugawa government realise the importance of big ships, and they soon started to import ships mainly from Holland and England. Kanrin-Maru was one of them: in 1860 it crossed the Pacific Ocean for the first time with a Japanese crew. In 1855, the Tokugawa government built a large-scale machine shop and shipyard in Nagasaki with the co-operation of Dutch engineers. Another shipyard was built in Yokosuka with the help of French engineers. The main purpose of these initiatives was to build a strong navy.

The Meiji government continued the policy of dry-dock construction and launched small ships from these docks, but big ships were still imported. The government bought the 15,000 ton battleship Mikasa from England, and used it as the flagship of the Japanese fleet which defeated the formidable Russian Baltic Fleet in 1905. Japanese docks were not large enough for building battleships and the four destroyers delivered to the Navy in 1903 were the first homebuilt warships. This was about half a century after American Commodore M.C. Perry had arrived in Japan with his fleet. By 1905 Japan owned a total of 930,000 tons of shipping, and ranked 6th in the world. However, of this total, ships made in Japan amounted to only 58,000 tons. The government once by again encouraged the shipbuilding industry in Japan 1911 to 1897 From support. financial special providing it with and the shipping worth 313,000 tons was launched in Japan, that reached soon g engineerin ng level of Japanese shipbuildi of European countries. The battleships Mutsu and Nagato of 33,800 tons each were built in the pride of the Japanese navy. They were designed and 1920s. the in ers the navy yards by Japanese engine

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Although most of Japan’s shipyards were destroyed during World War II, the Japanese shipbuilding industry was rapidly restored and the country soon became the world’s largest builder of commercial ships without substantial import of foreign engineering.

AUTOMOBILE

ENGINEERING

Here too a small number of automobiles were first imported from the USA. The first automobile made in Japan (equipped with a 25 hp steam engine) appeared in 1904. An automobile with a gasoline engine appeared in 1907. This engine was an exact replica of an American design. In 1924, Japan Ford Co., started knock-down production in Yokohama, and in 1927 Japan General Motors Co., started assembly work in Osaka. In 1931 these two companies supplied about 90 per cent of the total automobile demand in Japan. They had little connection with Japanese manufacturers such as Toyota and Nissan, who started production around 1937; although the technology was developed by their own efforts, the production system was small in scale and obsolete. It is clear that when Japan declared war in 1941,its capability in automobile production was far behind that of the US. After the war, Nissan imported automobile technology from Austin, England in 1952. In 1965 the import of passenger cars was liberalised. The Japanese auto industry was strong enough by then to compete with imports. An interesting case is provided here by the development of the rotary engine by Mazda. The initial engine was imported in 1960 but it was far from reliable. With an effort lasting several years by Mazda engineers the engine was improved upon tremendously till it demonstrated high performance and reliability. In 1970, the 100,000th rotary-engine car was rolled out. At present Japanese cars are known the world over for their high quality.

THE AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY The airplane is not an invention of the Japanese. In the Tokugawa Era a craftsman on board a big kite-like device—a

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‘Paper Bird’—jumped off a cliff in an attempt to fly. Unfortunately for him the trial was unsuccessful, but more than that he was punished for his unlawful invention! The first flight by the Japanese took place in 1910 when two army officers piloted French-made planes. In 1911 a navy officer produced a simple plane by himself and flew about 4 km. The Japanese army and navy realised the importance of airplanes when their power was demonstrated during World War I. Early Japan-made airplanes were modified versions of German and French designs. In the 1920s the Japanese navy and army invited groups of designers from Germany and France. From around 1925 the aircraft industry was built with the strong support of the navy and army. European engineers also contributed to fundamental research in aeronautics. A well known example is of Th. von Karman, who came to Japan in 1930 and designed a wind-tunnel for Kawanishi Aircraft Co. The first ‘made-in-Japan’ fighter plane was built in 1931 and Japanese aeronautical engineering reached world levels in 1936 when the navy 96-type fighter rolled out. The famous Zero fighter followed in 1940. It was ranked as one of the best fighters in the world. During the war the airplane industry was given the highest priority, and a great number of airplanes were produced, some of them with top-level performance. After the war aeronautical research and production were prohibited by the allied forces. A large number of aeronautical engineers changed their subject and entered various other fields and industries, to which their high technical skills made important contributions. On the other hand, the airplane industry suffered from the lost tradition and the shortage of experienced engineers: it still remains a small-scale enterprise in Japan—airplanes are not exported, unlike other industrial products.

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING The commercial supply of electricity in Tokyo began in 1887. Electricity was entirely new for the Japanese; and in the beginning western countries tried hard to sell them electric generators,

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cables, motors, lamps etc. Considerable sums of money were spent on the import of hardware, as well as for the employment of engineers for its installation and maintenance. For instance, when a Japanese company built a 15,000 kW hydroelectric plant in 1905, they had to import the turbine from Switzerland, the generator from Germany and transformers from the US. Many Japanese companies joined their western counterparts in order to import their technology. Hitachi was the only company which chose to be independent, and produced, in 1909, a large electric motor using its own technology for the first time in Japan. Import of electrical machines into Japan became difficult during World War I, which in turn provided a rare opportunity for establishing domestic production in the country. In 1915, Hitachi manufactured a 10,000 hp turbine for a hydroelectric plant. Subsequently, the 1923 Tokyo earthquake brought more good fortune for the company. A great demand for the replacement of broken machines resulted in the advancement of its technology and prosperity for the company. Around 1935 Hitachi’s soaring sales made it one of the five biggest electrical machine manufacturers in the world. As demand for electrical power increased coal- and oil-fired power plants became part of the mainstream. However, since Japanese engineers had little experience with such power plants, they once again had to rely on western technology. The principle they applied was that the first machine would be imported, but subsequent machines would be made by Japanese engineers. When nuclear plants were planned, the same was repeated. Japanese engineers were always quick to catch up with existing technology, and in the present times there is no doubt that Japanese electrical engineering has reached the world’s top levels.

ATTITUDE OF JAPANESE PEOPLE TOWARDS IMPORTED ENGINEERING We have seen that the Japanese caught up with Chinese engineering in the 8th century, and have now surpassed the level of Euro-American engineering in many areas. These historical events raise interesting questions. What are the reasons for

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such success in transplantation of engineering? Is similar success possible in today’s developing countries? I shall try to answer these questions by describing the attitude of the Japanese people towards imported engineering. Curiosity AND ADAPTABILITY

One important factor for Japan’s success is curiosity, which provides a wide market for imported goods and at the same time stimulates indigenous production of the same goods. Lack of curiosity in people makes the transplantation of engineering very slow; it may not even happen. On the other hand, if the curiosity level of the people is very strong they will continue to import new things and not hesitate to abandon the old. This results in the traditional culture of the people being destroyed. Therefore, there needs to be an optimum degree of curiosity. Unfortunately, we do not know where the spirit of curiosity comes from, or how it can be controlled. Since the Japanese exhibit a high degree of curiosity, they look for new things all the time. Almost all the industrial products in the world are produced and sold in Japan. This curiosity has a strong connection with adaptability. When old products are replaced by new ones, people have to adapt themselves to the new environment. If they cannot or will not do it, the new will soon fade away. Usually the Japanese are afraid of change, but they have the ability to adapt themselves to a new situation after any change has taken place. In the last war Tokyo was carpet-bombed and most of the city burnt down. The new, post-war Tokyo is very different from the old capital. Foreign visitors are often disappointed to find this change. The Japanese also sentimentally miss the old Tokyo, but they pragmatically appreciate the new Tokyo because it is more convenient. On this point the Japanese are very different from the French, who have tried to preserve old

Paris at all costs.

RELIGION Japan has experienced different waves of various religions from outside. The original religion of Japan is Shintoism, which is a

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simple polytheism based on respect for ancestors. Since there are many ancestors, there are also many gods—a total of eight million, it has been said. Buddhism was imported in the 6th century, and spread quickly because it was supported by the emperors. Many Buddhist temples were built, often close to the Shinto shrines. No major struggle between Shintoists and Buddhists has ever been recorded. Although Emperor Shomu was supposed to be a master of Shintoism, in aD 600 he ordered that one official Buddhist temple be built in each province. All the Japanese were forced to be Buddhists in the Tokugawa Era. This imported Buddhism however was refined in Japan over a long period of time: contemporary Buddhism in Japan is quite different from the old Buddhism practiced in India. At present there are more than 100,000 Buddhist temples, and a comparable number of Shinto shrines in Japan. Another big wave experienced by the Japanese vis-a-vis religion was Jukyo (Confucianism) from China. To be precise Jukyo is not a religion but an ethical system, which was widely appreciated in Japan and has continued to have an overwhelming influence on the Japanese way of thinking and behaviour for a long time. Among the many ethical codes of this system, the encouragement of education, friendship and hard work has been particularly useful for the transplantation of engineering. Christianity was another religious wave that touched Japan from Europe, but it did not expand like Buddhism. Although freedom of religion is assured by the Japanese constitution, the number of Christians in Japan is negligibly small. There is almost no influence of Christianity on Japanese society. Religious people are sometimes reluctant to import a foreign culture because it is very often connected with a specific religion. The Japanese are both Buddhists and Shintoists at the same time, They visit Shinto shrines on New Year’s Day and pray for good luck, but at the same time more than 90 per cent of the people observe Buddhist funeral services. Moreover, some people also celebrate Christmas even though they are not Christians. This flexible attitude towards religion often allows easy acceptance of any external culture regardless of the religion underlying it.

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Harp Work, TEAMWORK

The environment of the Japanese islands—mild temperature, moderate rainfall and soft sunshine—is favourable to the inhabitants for they are good conditions for work. But Japan is not Shangri-la. Occasional earthquakes and typhoons do destroy the environment and force people to work. The Confucian tradition encourages hard work and the belief that it is rewarded. If one is idle, one has to compensate for that. This fact is important, because without hard work no one can catch up with the front-runners. In ap 604 a constitution of 17 articles, known after Prince Shotoku, one of the most distinguished statesmen in ancient Japan, was proclaimed. At the beginning of the constitution he wrote ‘The best virtue for us is harmony in the community’. This spirit has been inherited by the Japanese through their long history. Even today heavy discussion is not popular among the Japanese, who believe that they can understand each other without words. In education, from the primary level to high school, stress is placed on training for co-operation. Teachers are anxious to make everybody uniform and co-operative. They do not care about originality and ask pupils, ‘Why do you refuse to do this while all

others are willing?’. Co-operation has been very useful in importing engineering. Even if the capability of each member is not high enough, a well-organised group can hit a high target. Many Japanese engineers point out that Total Quality Control is the source of their success, and that it works only in a friendly atmosphere.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE During the Nara period the Japanese welcomed Korean and Chinese immigrants, and there were no serious confrontations between the natives and them. Frequent intermarriages wiped out differences among the races and this process was appropri ‘teachwestern the With culture. outside an ng ate for absorbi ers’ of the Meiji Era, on the other hand, there was little mixing of blood through marriage. The Japanese of that time seemed

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to want to get rid of foreign teachers as soon as possible. Many western engineers noticed that the Japanese wanted to do things by themselves, even when they were not qualified. Despite the fact that the two attitudes are entirely different, both are curiously suitable for absorbing imported technology. Another important factor is the scale of society. If the scale is too small, the traditional culture is easily expelled by the foreign culture. There are many such examples in history. Since Japan had a fairly large population when it faced Chinese or western culture, the mixture of imported and native cultures took place gradually without large-scale destruction of the traditional culture. The status of engineers in society is another important factor. In the Tokugawa Era feudal society consisted of four layers. The highest consisted of warriors, who formed the ruling class; the farmers came next, then the craftsmen who were positioned higher than merchants who formed the lowest layer. Although this stratification was not rigid, craftsmen were proud of their profession. At present the Japanese people respect engineers: they fill leading positions in many Japanese companies. The position of technicians is also high. Elite engineers with high education are willing to work together with technicians. Engineering can flourish in a society which appreciates engineering.

POLITICS Japanese politicians are typically Japanese in that they are curious about new things and welcome the import of engineering. They also use the curiosity of the people as a device for ruling. Therefore, politicians have generally welcomed the import of engineering. We have seen that both in the Asuka-Nara and the Meiji periods the government welcomed foreign engineers (western engineers received salaries that were 20 to 50 times higher than those of their Japanese counterparts). It seems incredible but

the government felt they had no choice but to invite excellent engineers from distant countries. The Meiji government

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intentionally distributed such invitations to various countries in order to avoid overwhelming pressure from any one specific country. Japanese engineering students met European teachers at home, but many went abroad for further studies as well, as the government encouraged them to do so and offered them appropriate positions on their return. The Japanese government used to make a master plan for importing western engineering and gave financial support to newborn domestic industries provided that they observed the plan faithfully. Traditionally, the Japanese people have followed government instructions without strong objections. In that sense the Japanese economy is a kind of planned economy. At present many Asian countries follow this policy. This may not be a genuinely democratic system, but without doubt this has been a very efficient way for the development of imported engineering.

CONCLUSION The question I pose to myself is: can developing countries catch up and surpass developed countries in engineering, and if so how? This is a difficult question, because it is like the question about who has a chance of getting a medal in the Olympic Games. Theoretically, everybody has a chance. In reality, however, for winning a medal one has to have extraordinarily strong muscles, endure hard training and maintain the best physical condition. Only an extremely small number of athletes fulfil all these requirements. All developing countries have the chance to catch up with developed countries, but it is hard to tell which ones can really achieve it. In the case of Japan, two very significant factors helped. One was good luck. In the Nara period, wars in the Korean Peninsula and east China resulted in a mass migration of engineers to Japan. This helped accelerate the development of Japanese engineering. In the Meiji period, Japan barely escaped colonisation by western powers. Such pieces of good luck in history cannot be artificially created.

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The other important factor is the capability of the Japanese people. Each race or society has a long history, which forms different capabilities. Engineering, unlike science, is supported by the common people, not by a small number of geniuses. I believe that for advances in engineering, education is the most important factor: it is the basis of every capability like curiosity, hard work and teamwork. Without an appropriate educational system there is no chance of catching up with the front-runners.

Note In preparing this article I have received valuable help from many of my friends including Dr Tanaka K., Mrs Wakao S. and Mrs Kitani S. I owe the pictures to my daughter Kaoru. I have enjoyed stimulating discussions with Mr Yoshida C., Mr Nakamura H., and many others. I express my heartfelt gratitude to them all.

Science, Technology and Society: A Tale About Rocket Development during 1750-1850 RODDAM NARASIMHA

Fire can burn but cannot move. Wind can move but cannot burn.

Till fire joins wind it cannot take a step. Do men know it’s like that with knowing and doing?

Dévara Dasimayya (10th c. cE), translated by A.K. Ramanujan’

The public in general often thinks of science and technology and together in the same breath: they are Tweedledum ion percept this so or Tweedledee to them. In the last 50 years nuclear not did all, has become even more widespread. After were energy—spectacularly demonstrated by the bombs that famous ’s Einstein dropped in Japan in 1945—stem directly from ry—the equation E = mc”? Has not the whole computer indust because only silicon chip, for example—been rendered possible such as siliof our understanding of the properties of materials ics— mechan con through the revolutionary ideas of quantum possibilities how otherwise would we have seen the esoteric

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that lay hidden in such a common material as sand (of which silicon is a major constituent)? Such spectacular examples have persuaded the public to think of ‘S&T as almost one subject—one force, to be exploited or feared depending on one’s feeling of mastery or inadequacy before the overwhelming pace at which knowledge of the physical world has revealed heretofore unimagined possibilities. These developments have led to a related viewpoint, which emerged at the end of the Second World War as a result of the role that many ‘pure’ scientists played in the development of powerful military tools for offence or defence (nuclear weapons, radar, cryptography etc.). Scholars who had till then remained in their laboratories or libraries, writing of their discoveries at appropriate intervals largely for an audience of peers (an ‘invisible college’, it has been called), emerged during the war to lead the design and fabrication of operational systems for the armed forces of their nations. The successes associated with those wartime projects led to the view that technology is basically applied science. This view was most forcefully expressed in a famous report prepared for the US president in 1945 by the American science administrator Vannevar Bush, who wrote:

Basic research provides scientific capital. It creates the fund from which practical applications of knowledge must be drawn. New products and new processes ... are founded on new principles and new cenceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developed by research in the purest realms of science.’

This view implies a linear relationship that goes from science to technology, and has influenced much of the thinking on all related issues for several decades after the war. It is implied that the relation is asymmetric, unidirectional. However, as the history of technology is explored in greater detail, it becomes increasingly clear that such a ‘linear’ view is not always valid. The relationship between science and technology is much more complex, although there is no question that science can lead to new technologies and can strengthen older

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ones. However, the understanding that has come out of science, even in recent times, has often been unable to help predict the course that technology will take. We may recall here that Lord Rutherford, the father of modern nuclear science, said in 19338 that ‘he who talks about atomic energy on a large scale is talking moonshine’;’ Niels Bohr was similarly pessimistic—as late as 1939! There is the well known instance of a group of scientists in the 1930s, who were looking ahead on what science and technology promised in the years to come, but could not foresee any of the major developments that took place in the following decades: nuclear energy, penicillin, transistors, computers etc., were all missed. As recently as 10 years ago, there were very few who foresaw the way that the use of the Internet would spread across the globe. In 1949, the president of IBM did not foresee that more than 10-15 computers of the kind that IBM were making at that time would ever be sold in the whole world. Again, nobody foresaw the extraordinary way in which the use of lasers would spread, all the way from making nuclear weapons to crushing kidney stones to reading price labels in a supermarket or accession numbers in a library; and lawyers at Bell Laboratories were even unwilling to apply for patents on the device. This situation is nothing new: the story has been the same for quite a long time. In 1896, the great British scientist Lord Kelvin said that he did not have ‘the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning’, as the Wright Brothers, two bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio, proceeded to prove him wrong seven years later. At that time Lord Kelvin was a leading figure in world science, and an authority on the motion of fluids (among other things); he was by no means the conventional ‘academic’ or ‘ivory-tower’ scientist, for he helped lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable (it was for this achievement that he was elevated to the peerage), and made much money from his patents and consulting fees.’ It is therefore clear that the course that technological devel. opments take is something that is extremely hard to predict preThe difficulty is not that the people who try to make these as the dictions do not know the state of science at the time; been aforementioned list indicates some of them have not only often quite but age, their of sts scienti the most distinguished

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those who were pioneers in the area in which predictions were being made. The point rather is that the most rewarding applications of any new idea (or even an old one, for that matter) are very hard to foresee, because we do not understand either the compulsions of technology or the dynamics of human choice. Many industries depend on market surveys to tell them which products are most likely to sell. While such surveys may be helpful when a product line is relatively mature, it is also known that when truly novel products are being created such surveys are virtually useless, because people do not know what uses a new product can be put to before they have handled it for some time. Cost-to-benefit ratios, so dear to economic analysts, are difficult to estimate when a product is so novel that its benefits cannot be assessed with confidence—for the simple reason that they are not known. The fact is that the new product quite often makes the market, and not the other way round: successful technologies create a cascade of unforeseen applications, invention becomes the mother of necessity. The pioneers in technology are often those people who instinctively know what the public needs, and know it well before the public does. Several instances in the consumer electronics and computer industries can be quoted to prove this, including the now ubiquitous personal computer. When the first such machines were made by young, fun loving university dropouts in California, very few foresaw the giant industry that would rapidly emerge and affect every walk of life. Of course, the reverse is also true that several products which often may seem to be obvious turn out to be duds in the marketplace (e.g., the picture-phone of the 1960s). Or a prediction that seems eminently reasonable from a scientific viewpoint turns out to be technologically not feasible—at least in the short run. One example is controlled thermonuclear fusion, which at one time was expected to become such a cheap source of energy that there would be no need to even meter it. A second and more recent example is warm superconductivity, where the problems of fabricating devices from ceramics that possess extraordinarily attractive properties as conductors have turned out to be technologically formidable. The Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus is therefore still being played out. However, failure is a

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part of the inventive process. It has been pointed out that one of the remarkable-characteristics of Silicon Valley is that no stigma is attached to failure there—on the other hand, the technologist who has conceived of a new product, even one that does not succeed in the marketplace, is often considered a valuable person

to have in any new venture, because he possesses a powerful imagination. A field of technology in which there are no failures at all is most likely stagnant or mature, if not in imminent decline.® So mistakes can be made both ways: ‘unlikely’ products may succeed, ‘sensible’ products may fail. We must also understand that even now there are many products that operate without a level of understanding that would a be satisfactory to a scientist. The most common example—and it day this To . very shocking one, indeed—is ordinary plumbing of is not possible to predict, based only on the first principles be can water much mechanics (for example Newton’s laws), how across pushed through a given pipe for a prescribed pressure drop of state a in it.6 The reason is that the flow in the pipe is often t physicis famous turbulence, and turbulence remains (as the of problem Richard Feynman remarked) the great unsolved engineers classical physics. In spite of this, as all of us know, ds of thousan have successfully pushed water through pipes for the possess they years. They have been able to do this because through required knowledge, although it has been acquired and some very considerable experience, testing and simulation, ts involving clever analysis, rather than by irrefutable argumen such ‘engineering’ logical deduction from fundamental science; of experience. knowledge may be unreliable outside the domain

fundamentals of the To underline our continuing ignorance of the mathematician in subject, a well known investigation by a famous (outside the range of 1996 concluded that under certain conditions loss by current present experience), predictions of pressure almost 65 per by wrong be could accepted engineering practice on of this prediction cent! (No convincing confirmation or refutati has yet been possible.) es. When they were For a second example, consider steam engin 19th centuries, early and first developed in the late 18th it developed ct: subje a as thermodynamics did not exist

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subsequently, in an effort to understand the engines that had already come to be used widely. It is for this reason that such fundamental ideas as the Second Law of Thermodynamics have for long been enunciated in terms of what idealised engines can do.’ Indeed, it would be entirely justified, from a historical point of view, to call thermodynamics ‘Applied Heat Engines’—that is, heat engines applied to understand nature—in a neat reversal of the ‘linear’ relationship from science to technology that has been the ruling paradigm during the last half-century. All of this, of course, is what makes for the romance of technology development. Behind this romance, however, is the truth that the difference between science and technology is fundamental. Science, as its practitioners see it today, has to do with ‘understanding’ nature, and predicting it, using the minimum number of independent principles possible: ‘intellectual economy’ is a major goal. ‘More is in vain when less will serve’, said Isaac Newton in the Principia (1687).® Technology on the other hand has to do with making new products, or ‘artifacts’, often never imagined before. In doing this scientific knowledge can of course be of the greatest value, but if the understanding is not available the engineer is willing to use whatever information he has or can generate on the processes that he has to manage. He will be delighted to use theory if a serviceable one is available, otherwise he will resort to empirical

correlations, handbooks, test data, experience, simulation, and even folklore heard from colleagues or read about in literature. The engineer’s philosophy is accurately summed up by the famous British electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside, who pointed out that we do not wait to understand the process of digestion before we start to eat. It therefore seems clear that the nature of knowledge in science is different from that in technology; and indeed it is tempting to say that technology is autonomous, with its own methods of ‘validating’ the knowledge that it uses? However, some of this knowledge is explicit and is indeed based on science and may be said to constitute ‘engineering’ and ‘engineering science’, but some is also tacit and may never become part of the public knowledge system of the world. If we use ‘understanding’ as a code word for what science offers us, we could say that at any given time we know more than what we understand; but of course

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we get to know even more whenever we gain in understanding, and this is what engineering science is attempting all the time. We must however realise that progress in technology can and does depend heavily on progress in science. With time this is increasingly so because science may reveal unsuspected possibilities, and can transform older technologies. Correspondingly, however, progress in science depends on technological advances as well—a point that we will not argue here but one which is obvious from the vast efforts in engineering and instrumentation that go into experimental work in the ‘pure’ sciences (such as giant telescopes and super-conducting super-colliders), or in making computers that can perform trillions of mathematical

operations per second. So a linear, asymmetric relationship of the kind that is suggested by thinking of technology as ‘applied science’ is certainly misleading, but interactions between science and technology are crucial for progress in either one of them. In the rest of this chapter, I want to discuss a point of view that emerges from considering the role of science and technology development in countries that did not participate in the scientific and industrial revolutions that swept Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. While much of the recent debate on the relationship between science and technology has been influenced by events in the industrialised world during the last 50 years, it is possible that an examination of earlier history elsewhere in the world can shed some light on the question. Joseph Needham” has made a monumental study of the history of science and technology in China, and has shown how a great variety of technologies were known in China long before they were used in Europe. Nevertheless, the industrial revolution took place force not in China (or in India) but in Europe, with a vigour and

are that changed the world—for better or worse. While there accidents various economic, social and cultural factors as well as

events, of history that may have determined the course of these looking from comes that I would like to present one perspective of rocket at a rather curious episode in the development 1850. and 1750 technology in India and Europe between

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The history of the development of rockets offers some fascinating insights into the complex interactions between science, technology and society, and the shifting balance of technological prowess in the world with time, and the forces that effect the shift. It is widely agreed that the first recorded use of rockets comes from China in the 11th century cE; perhaps these were what we might now term ‘rocket-assisted arrows’. (We need to distinguish between true ‘rockets’ which are entirely selfpropelled, and ‘arrows’ [even fire-tipped] which are shot with the energy of a bowstring: a rocket-assisted arrow is a hybrid. As the rocket became sufficiently powerful to serve as a destructive warhead by itself, the arrow to which it used to be attached was discarded, but a stabilising stick or pole continued to be used till the last century.) It is reported that in 1232 ck, five years after Genghis Khan’s death, Chinese rocket barrages repeatedly repulsed the Mongolian cavalry led by his successors in attacks on the city of Kaifeng on the Yellow River. The invention travelled rapidly (presumably through the Mongols) to Europe, where it was first mentioned in 1258 cE and was experimented with and used upto the 15th century: in England, Roger Bacon (1214—94) had worked on both advanced gunpowder and rockets. However, towards the beginning of the 16th century the cannon (invented around 1300 ck, after the rocket) had improved so greatly in accuracy, range and firepower that the military rocket fell into disuse. The re-emergence of the rocket as a significant military weapon during the 18th century in the princely state of Mysore in South India is a fascinating little episode in the history of technology in India. Given here is a brief narrative on how this happened, and the interesting sequel of its development in 19th-century Britain and Europe."! During the second half of the 18th century the Raja of Mysore was sidelined by a bold officer named Hyder Ali (who went on eventually to call himself a sarvadhikari or supremo) in his army, and then by his son Tipu, who declared himself swltan or king. It must however be noted that the rocket was in use in India even before Hyder—his father had already commanded 50 rocketmen for another South Indian prince, and the Moghuls had used it even earlier, in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The interest in the events of the late 18th

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century arises from two facts: the balance of industrial power began to shift from Asia to Europe during that period, and interesting accounts have been left behind by European observers.

The rockets used by the Mysoreans consisted of a metal cylinder (casing) containing the combustion powder (propellant), tied to a long bamboo pole or sword which provided the required stability to the missile. These rockets bear a strong resemblance to the much smaller ‘rocket’ which is a part of the fireworks so commonly seen even today during the Indian festival of lights, Deepavali. Two specimens preserved in the Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich Arsenal in England have these dimensions:

*

*

Casing of hide Casing of hide

58 mm outer to a straight 37 mm outer to a bamboo

diameter x 254 mm long, tied with strips 1.02 m long sword blade. diameter x 198 mm long, tied with strips pole 1.9 m long.

than These rockets had a thrust and range both much higher later by med confir as , Europe anything in use at that time in about as quoted often is experiments in England. The range of 1,000 yards. There are however other accounts that speak poles, bamboo m 3 to tied kg, rockets that generally weighed 3.5 an stanand with a range of upto 2.4 km, and this, by Europe 1978). (Baker time the dards, was outstanding performance for uted attrib be cannot The superior performance of these rockets der. gunpow like al to the propellant, which was standard materi cs of these There was nothing unusual about the aerodynami either; it is however rockets, or about their shape and stability employed for the possible that their superiority lay in the material hammered soft of casing. The casing was a metal cylinder made

erable advance iron. Although it was crude, it represented a consid of the time had over earlier technology, as European rockets

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combustion chambers made of some kind of paste board. For example, Geissler in Germany used wood, covered with sail cloth soaked in hot glue for the casing. The use of iron (which at that time was of much better quality in India than in Europe, as we shall discuss further below) increased bursting pressures, which permitted the propellant (gunpowder) to be packed to greater densities. This appears to be the reason behind the ‘outstanding’ performance of the rockets, although much research needs to be done to determine the exact reason. There existed at the time a regular Rocket Corps in the Mysore -army. Beginning with about 1,200 men in Hyder’s times, this number eventually reached a strength of about 5,000 in Tipu Sultan’s army, with several units of over a hundred men each. There are historical accounts that mention the skill of the Mysorean operators in giving the rockets an elevation that depended on the varying dimensions of the rocket cylinder and the distance of the rocket from the target. Furthermore, the rockets could be launched rapidly using a wheeled cart with three or more rocket ramps. The vigorous use of such rockets in the Anglo-Mysore wars may have had something to do with Tipu Sultan’s character, for he was an innovator in many ways, and would have been called a ‘technology buff’ today. He was curious about European inventions such as barometers and thermometers, and made vigorous efforts to promote the manufacture of novel devices in various cities of the state in areas often known as Tardamandalpet (which may be aptly translated as Galaxy Bazar). One of these still survives to this day in the older part of Bangalore (although no longer under its beautiful old name) and houses many small workshops and powerlooms. These were the ‘technology parks’ of his day. These efforts were encouraged in later years by the favourable impression his weapons made, especially the rockets, on notables like the Sultan of Constantinople, to whom they had been sent as presents. The use of rockets by Hyder and Tipu Sultan is mentioned at various places in Wilks’s (1810) famous ‘History of Mysoor’. A more recent and readable account of the history of Tipu Sultan is written by Forrest (1970). The first striking account we have of the use of these rockets is in the Battle of Pollilur, which was fought on 10 September

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1780 during the second Anglo-Mysore War near a small village about 180 km east of Bangalore. Hyder and Tipu achieved a famous victory in this battle, and it is widely held that a strong contributory cause was that one of the British ammunition tumbrils was set on fire by the Mysore rockets, a scene that is celebrated in a famous mural that can still be seen at the summer palace in Tipu Sultan’s capital Srirangapattana. Writing about this war, Sir Alfred Lyall remarked that, as a consequence of this defeat, ‘The fortunes of the English in India had fallen to their lowest water-mark’. Interest in these rockets was triggered in Britain, in part, by accounts of the wars that appeared in a book by Innes Munro titledA Narrative of the Military Operations on the Coromandel Coast etc., published in London in 1789. Munro was a correspondent of the London Times and had spent the period of 1778-82 accompanying British troops on their various campaigns in South India. One incident which occurred during the rocket attacks that were part of the battles of the time involved Col. Wellesley, to become famous later as Lord Wellington and the hero of Waterloo, and took place in the fourth Anglo-Mysore War of 1799. Before the siege could be pressed closer to Tipu Sultan’s capital, a large mango grove (near a place called Sultanpet or Sultanpettah), which gave shelter to Tipu Sultan’s rocketmen, had to be cleaned out. Wellesley was chosen for this task. Advancing towards the grove after dark, he was set upon with rockets and musket fire and lost his way. His men gave way, were dispersed, and retreated in disorder. Several were killed, and 12 grenadiers were taken prisoner. This ‘Sultanpet incident’, as Wellington’s biographers call it, clearly had a profound and traumatic effect on Wellesley; even late in his life, well after Waterloo, Wellington used to come back to the incident with his own ‘explanations’ for what had happened, presumably to counter what some of his detractors had long hinted was a black mark on an otherwise illustrious career. The effect that these rockets had on British troops is well described by a young English officer, who said in his journal: The rockets and musketry from 20,000 of the enemy were incessant. No hail could be thicker. Every illumination of

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blue lights was accompanied by a shower of rockets, some of which entered the head of the column, passing through to the rear, causing death, wounds, and dreadful lacerations from the long bamboos of twenty or thirty feet, which are invariably attached to them. In spite of all this, however, the battle was over on 4 May 1799 when Tipu Sultan was killed in action. Two facts stand out clearly from these accounts. First, the British were caught off guard by the Indians’ use of rockets, which at the least caused great fear and confusion. Second, in spite of this, the rockets could not tilt the balance decisively in favour of Tipu Sultan and his armies in the later battles. There is however no doubt that the British were extraordinarily impressed, as their effort at developing their own rockets in the decades following Tipu Sultan’s defeat and death indicate. This is discussed briefly ahead.

A vigorous programme of what we would now call ‘research and development’ on rockets took place in Britain at the beginning of the 19th century, triggered in particular by Munro’s book of 1789. The programme began when several Indian rocket cases were collected and returned to Britain for analysis. Further development was chiefly the work of Col. (later Sir) William Congreve, who was told that the British had suffered more from the rockets than from shells or any other weapon used by the Indians in these wars. In 1801-2, Congreve bought (out of his own pocket) and tested the biggest skyrockets available at the time in London. Their range was found to be about 500-600 yards, less than half that of the Mysore rockets. He then started developing his own rocket, using the facilities of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich Arsenal,

with the support of such influential men as his father, who was comptroller of the laboratory, and of Lord Chatham, who was prime minister of England during 1783-1801. Congreve first

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tested various combinations for the propellant, and eventually developed a rocket motor with a stout iron case of 100 mm diameter and a conical nose. The rocket weighed about 14.5 kg, and was attached to a 4.6 m long stick, 38 mm in diameter. This rocket, already bigger than what the Mysoreans had used, cost him about £1. In 1804, he published a book titledA Concise Account on the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System. Congreve’s rockets had iron hoops on one side, making it easier and quicker to fix the stabilising stick, but later he also tried a configuration where the stick was fixed at the centre of the casing with exhaust gases coming out of orifices around the circumference. He reported that 13,109 rockets had been manufactured by August 1806. It is of special interest to note that Congreve’s reasoning was based on Newton’s third law of motion. He recognised that one of the chief advantages of the rocket would be the absence of the recoil force (‘to ground’, so to speak) that had made it so difficult to use the cannon on ships. He therefore argued that rockets were particularly suited for seaborne assault, although he apparently came to feel later that this was not the best method of using them. At any rate, the argument persuaded the British navy to experiment with rockets in an attack on the French channel port of Boulogne, where Napoleon had been assembling his forces with the intention of taking the war to British soil. The first attack was unsuccessful, but the second, mounted on 8 October 1806, turned out to be devastating. In about half an hour more than 2,000 rockets were discharged, and in less than 10 minutes after the first discharge the town was reported to be on fire. Napoleon was forced to abandon all plans for a crosschannel expedition on Britain. In 1807 this success with rockets was followed by an effective barrage of about 25,000 rockets on Copenhagen, and later in various other wars in Europe. The Congreve rockets were also used in several engagements during the Anglo-American ‘War of 1812’, sometimes with little and on other occasions with great effect: they were still rather unreliable and inaccurate, but had a greater range than the cannon and could even be fired from rowboats (because of the lack of recoil mentioned earlier). Indeed, the rockets were responsible for the fall of Washington. It was a spectacular but unsuccessful

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attack on Fort McHenry that led to the mention of ‘the rockets’ red glare’ in the US national anthem, which began as a patriotic song composed by a young American lawyer, Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the attack. The main advantages of these rockets were that their range exceeded that of other movable artillery of that time (this is spectacularly true again in the second half of the 20th century, with missiles having intercontinental ranges), and the absence of recoil which, apart from permitting operation of rockets from boats, also eliminated the heavy ‘barrel’ required to direct other projectiles. For Congreve had demonstrated that a rocket barrage could be discharged even from collapsible wooden frames (but this would have been no surprise to Indian rocketmen, although they would have been unable to connect it with Newton’s laws), and thought of the rockets as ‘the soul of artillery without the body’. Virtually all the European powers of the time as well as the US quickly followed the footsteps of Congreve and the British. Congreve’s achievements were remarkable for their comprehensiveness. Beginning with the application of the laws of mechanics to understand rocket behaviour, he experimented with a number of black powder formulas and set down specifications for their composition, standardised construction details, used improved production techniques (the stabilising stick could be quickly inserted into hoops on the side of the casing and crimped), offered designs permitting either explosive (ball charge) or incendiary warheads (the former could be independently timed by trimming the fuse length before launching), studied the tactics of their use (recommending that they be fired in volleys of at least 20 and preferably 50 rockets once every 30 seconds, to compensate for their dispersion), and designed simple collapsible wooden frames to serve as launchers (dispensing with the heavy wheeled carriages that were so necessary for transporting cannon and made them unusable in difficult terrain). In 1827, Congreve published his third book on the subject; he had by then succeeded his father at Woolwich and to the baronetcy, and had been elected to the Royal Society and Parliament. At least 20 books on the subject of rockets appeared around the time in Europe. Although they continued to be used for some

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time, the use of rockets considerably declined by mid-century, as artillery gained in accuracy and became more effective once again. For a long time rockets found peacetime application by saving people from shipwrecks. A light line used to be fired from shore to ship using a rocket, and then used to haul back a heavier line that brought passengers and crew to safety, from ship to shore. This system was reported to have saved more than 15,000 lives between 1871 and 1962, and was in use in the Netherlands

till the late 1960s. Many of the rockets that propel the missiles that form part of the powerful arsenal of several countries in this century have, however, come with a different technological pedigree. This can be traced to a new generation of 20th century pioneers in USA, Russia and Germany, and has seen the introduction of novel (liquid) propellants and guidance systems that have resulted in extremely high performance compared to their 18th and 19th century counterparts.

Two points can be made quickly here. First, even in the late 18th century there were still certain products, of which the rocket was one, where Indian technology was superior to western technology and was so recognised by both sides. As the superiority of the Indian rocket might have been chiefly attributable to the better quality of the iron/steel that was used for the rocket casing, it is worthwhile to look at the metallurgical technology of the time briefly. Pacey” points out that

iron made in India [at that time] was of a high quality ... even though Indian furnaces were operated inefficiently as compared with those of Europe. Samples of Indian iron were sent to Sheffield, because it was “excellently adapted for the purpose of fine cutlery”, and it was difficult to obtain such good iron in England, except through imports from Sweden.

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In fact, in the 1790s the British started importing Indian iron to reduce their dependence on Sweden. In a decade or two thereafter, however, forced by both politics and technology, iron production in India started to decline, and almost vanished in the 1850s. (It picked up again only after another few decades, but this time using British technology.) The British surprise at Indian technology was however not limited to rockets. It included, for example, certain agricultural implements which had been in regular use in India for a long time. Some of them, including a plough and a seed drill, were sent from India to the British Board of Agriculture in 1795. Sir Thomas Munro, who fought as a subaltern in the second Anglo-Mysore War and rose to be governor of Madras, testified before the House of Commons in 1813 that ‘India equalled Europe in many things— manufacturing and agricultural skill, elementary schools in every village, the treatment of women ...’ (here the emphasis is mine, but the other entries in Munro’s list are all revealing). Second, following their nasty encounters with Indian rockets, the British effort to understand and master the technology already bore the beginnings of the sophistication that we have come to associate with research and development of this age: scientific principles were applied, appropriate designs were made, suitable products developed, tested and systematically evaluated, and all of this carefully documented. This whole process was something which was alien to the Indians of the 18th century. The period we are looking at was of course rather special in British history. It saw the emergence and preliminary consolidation of British geopolitical power (although the American colonies were lost in 1776). Equally, the period also saw what historians agree was the first wave of the Industrial Revolution, often dated as lasting from 1750 to 1815 (Derry and Williams 1960). The transformation that took place in Britain during these years can be easily illustrated in terms of various parameters, for example, pig iron production, which spurted steeply in Britain some time around 1770. The period also saw many interesting developments in science and technology in Britain. Although Newton’s famous Principia had been published about 70 years earlier, it was only during the 1760s that its direct relevance to the solution of practical problems began to be appreciated. For example, the pioneering studies of John Smeaton

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on windmills and watermills date from this period: his diagrams of water wheels appeared virtually unaltered in British engineering texts almost right down to the 1950s. In 1776, James Watt’s steam engines were in operation at many places. Smeaton formed a Society of Engineers in 1771; engineering emerged as a profession, and engineering science as a pursuit, culminating in the foundation of the Institution

of Civil Engineers in 1818. Simultaneously, there was a marked decline in the technological capabilities of India, accompanying the rise of British power. In the decades following the Battle of Plassey (1757) India’s famed textile industry faced total ruin, as the British imposed stiff duties against Indian imports and started flooding India with textiles of better quality from Manchester. Indeed, recent historical research confirms that the period we are considering was a turning point in global economic history. As Frank" has pointed out, before 1800 the major industrial powers were in Asia (chiefly

China and India), but in the 19th and 20th centuries there was a

shift to Europe and America.

To summarise, therefore, there were products of Indian technology that in the second half of the 18th century were still

superior to those available anywhere else in the world, but India was untouched by the vast transformation that Britain and the rest of Europe were experiencing. From the examples still available, it is evident that the Indian r rockets used in those times were well made. They were howeve who artisans of creation not standardised, they were instead the ood had enjoyed a long tradition of working with well underst slowly d improve rockets materials and techniques. Although the methods over time, with much thought obviously given to the best rocket that clear of using them in warfare, it is equally within d remaine It manufacture never went beyond being a craft. fact, In son. to families, the skills often handed over from father rockets of one family that had been involved in the making a fire in their had survived in the area till the 1960s, when

end to a long establishment is reported to have put an tradition. its history is Returning to metallurgy in India, we note that

some time. long and distinguished, and has been well studied for

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Historians suggest that iron has been used in India since about 1300 Bor, and artifacts of the metal appeared around the same time in at least seven areas within the country, including what later came to be called Mysore. The use of iron may have been responsible for an early green revolution that led to the Indian prosperity of the first millennium sce. There is a legend that, during his raid of India (4th century BcE), Alexander was given a gift of a ball ofiron or steel, of approximately 15 kg (about 15 cm in diameter). Developments in technology continued over a long period, leading to such remarkable achievements as the rustless iron pillar (of the early 5th century cE) that is now found in the Qutub Minar complex in New Delhi, and the use of Indian iron for the celebrated Damascus swords, and the continued export to Europe of the South Indian steel known as wootz. It is remarkable, however, that relatively little ancient literature exists on some of these subjects in India—or if it exists, it remains unknown and inaccessible. For example, I cannot find any early Indian work that discusses rockets, in any technical detail; certainly there are no pictures or drawings at all, a situation that is in stark contrast to the situation in China or Europe. There are, of course, Sanskrit texts containing references to firearms, firearrows and.projectiles. The most well known of these (Sukraniti) provides recipes for making gunpowder for example, and discusses the use of several kinds of weapons, including projectiles and some kind of muskets (called ‘tubular weapons in the book).'° However there is not enough technical

detail to make more specific evaluations. It is further remarkable that the available literature does not have extensive information even in metallurgy either, where there once existed a tradition of metallurgy for more than three millennia, and Indian technology was outstanding. What written treatments are available describe metal-processing mostly for medical and pharmaceutical purposes, or for alchemy. Some of these were written with great authority, based on direct experience and observation. For example, the author of a 13th-century text said: ‘I describe for the benefit of the world what I have done or observed with my own eyes, not something recorded only from hearsay or from a teacher’s instruction’. The most significant text perhaps is an early 14th-century compilation

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known as Rasaratnasamuccaya (Handbook of Gem-Mineral Chemistry).© None of these, however, were illustrated. A point of interest to us here is that the knowledge in these books was closely guarded and was meant to be handed down only to selected pupils and family members. For example, the Samuccaya says, ‘This chemical knowledge is powerful when secret, impotent when public; so guard it with determination, as you would the privacy of your mother’. In general, great secrecy has surrounded the transmission of knowledge in India over long periods of time. Many examples of this can be quoted, from the earliest philosophical texts to the gharanas of Indian classical music, almost right down to the present day. Thus, the most sacred teaching was meant for those ‘sitting nearby’, which is the concept underlying the word Upanishads—the well known ancient Indian works of philosophy. (Interestingly, some of the earliest of these works contain evidence that even secret teaching was available to those without a right to it by birth, if the guru was convinced about their ability and motivation. The great rigidity of the system was perhaps a later development.) Al-Biruni, a Muslim scholar-traveller in India who wrote ex-

tensively around 1030 ce about the country and the belief and knowledge systems of its inhabitants, mentioned that, among several reasons why it was difficult to ‘penetrate to the essential nature of any Indian subject’, one was that Indians ‘are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner’. When European adventurers introduced various new technologies to India, some were accepted, some not; among those that found no takers was the printing press, indicating no strong pressure from any quarter to spread any kind of knowledge, sacred or secular.” It is of course not in India only that what is today called ‘intellectual property’ was guarded jealously: a certain kind of practical information has always been held with great secrecy everywhere in the world. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to feel that India went further than most in this respect. The Indian

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social system seems to have encouraged such secrecy; the interdependence among castes, which was a strong feature of the system that contributed to its remarkable stability, must have been encouraged in part by an ‘allocation’ of different knowledge subsystems to different castes. In particular, there developed over a period of time a dichotomy between the ‘thinkers’, who communicated in Sanskrit within a pan-Indian community of scholars, and the ‘doers’, whose skills were orally handed down in families and local caste groups that married among themselves. There was of course some interaction between these groups; thus the magnificent sacred sculptures (made out of metallic alloys such as bronze) that are among the most striking creations of Indian art, combined sophisticated concepts in aesthetics with the remarkable skill of the artisans who ran the foundries and finished the sculptures.!° Nevertheless, it appears certain that at the time when the craftsmen were making the best rockets in the world, there were no scholars in India who could provide direct intellectual or scientific support: it is doubtful if anybody knew about Newton’s laws (for example), or was willing to analyse rocket performance using the mathematics that had been so imaginatively developed in the country for astronomical applications. The net result of these characteristics of Indian society was precisely to promote its division into largely non-intersecting and even (intellectually) non-interacting groups of people, each with its own skills and monopoly of knowledge. (Interestingly, this system affected not only Hindus but the followers of Islam and Christianity as well: converts often carried both profession and caste with them.)”” There was a corresponding slowness in innovation, as these knowledge domains remained unchallenged except by foreign sources.

What are the implications of this account for the relationship between science and technology? A discussion of this issue is clouded by different perceptions of what constitutes ‘science’ in

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different cultures. In the West, as already pointed out, science has in recent times stood for ‘understanding nature’ and predicting its behaviour in terms of the fewest possible principles or hypotheses, of the kind that (according to Karl Popper) must be ‘falsifiable’. In many other cultures, and to some extent even in the West, science often also stands for any systematised but objective or consensible knowledge. The chief characteristic of both kinds of science is that a large number of the people who study that branch of knowledge, pursuing a course of vigorous but creative skepticism, eventually find that they can agree on its contents. (Of course there is always disagreement at the frontiers of knowledge, and sometimes this may turn violent; to that extent the frontiers are unconquered territory in which a great deal of skirmishing goes on, but, if the conclusion is successful, a ‘consensus’ emerges that then becomes part of mainstream science.) India has had a long and strong tradition of science, especially in the second sense of the word. The most striking examples are in medicine, mathematics and astronomy. In the latter subjects, the work of Aryabhata (5th century cE) often combines physical insight and mathematical procedure in a rather modern way, to create some science in the first sense of the word.” Grammar and linguistics, especially in Sanskrit, were also treated very ‘scientifically’, largely in the second sense of the word but with a profound respect for the demands of intellectual economy. There was also a keen appreciation that scientific and philosophical truths may of emerge from direct physical observation. There is the example who pupil the of a) the ancient Upanishadic story (in the Chandogy ers is asked to grind a seed to identify its essence. The astronom obbetter acquired continually updated their algorithms as they asboth from servational data. There are several other examples accurate of ce tronomy and medicine, where again the importan observation was highlighted.

y Technology in India also has along tradition, as we have alread d reside logy seen. However the two traditions of science and techno West the in in different communities. To a far greater extent than although the interactions between them have been rather weak of the rs not non-existent. It is true that many of the pionee nics’, or ‘mecha European industrial revolution were also artisans

132 Hl Roddam Narasimha

but even they had a greater contact with ‘learning’. For example, James Watt was an instrument mechanic, but he was at the

University of Glasgow; Robert Stephenson did not go to school, but he learnt to read at age 18 so that he could gain access to whatever information was available in books. And then there were people like Congreve and Smeaton, who combined in themselves what in India were separate traditions—not to mention Archimedes who made weapons of war for Syracuse, Newton who invented new types of telescope, and Einstein who took out patents for refrigerators. Such examples are hard to find in India. It seems as if the science that existed in India rarely worked for technological purposes.” Returning therefore to the relationship between science and technology that this chapter began with, we are led to conclude that while there is no justification for thinking of technology as (mere) applied science, it can be and has been disastrous to separate the two. In particular, the history of one episode analysed here shows that science (in both senses of the word) is the greatest ally that technology can have; and one is tempted to speculate that it is the rapidly increasing strength of such an alliance in the West, after the 17th century, that may have been a major factor in the explosive growth of both science and technology there. Correspondingly, it could be that the lack of such an alliance led to the stagnation of both in India (and perhaps in other eastern societies), although their traditions in science and technology of certain kinds were both very strong. The structure of society, which itself develops in response partially to technological developments but also to a variety of other forces, appears to have reinforced this separation between ‘science’ and ‘technology’. In some of these societies, these communities are getting together in the latter half of the 20th century, for almost the first time in their history: it does not take extraordinary perception as a social observer to see this happening in front of one’s eyes. The other side of the coin is that technology is the greates t ally that science has, but it is not our objective to pursue that thesis in this chapter.

Science, Technology and Society M133

NoTES AND REFERENCES

1.

I am indebted to Prof. M.N. Srinivas for his keen interest in this paper, and for his many helpful comments—most of which still need to be pursued! 1 thank Prof. A. Prabhu for sharing his knowledge of the vacana literature in Kannada, and Professors S.K. Biswas, J. Srinivasan and C.V. Sundaram for their comments on an earlier version of the paper. The author of the short poem quoted at the beginning is a 10th century Kannada

variously

poet, known

as Dévara

(i.e., God’s) or Jedara

(weaver) Dasimayya; the second form indicates his profession. (It was characteristic of the reformist ‘Vira-Saiva’ religious movement, of which our poet was an early member, that it drew its support from a variety of craftsmen, to whom it gave a new sense of dignity in their profession.) The translation is from A.K. Ramanujan, 1973, Speaking of Siva, UK: Penguin. The original Kannada reads: agni sudal.allade suliyal.ariyadu / vayu sulivud.allade sudal.ariyadu / @ agni vayuva kiudid.allade adiya.idal.ariyadu / i party.ante narar.arivare kriyajnana-bhédava / Rama-natha? (verse 4, Jedara Dasimayya Vacana, and in: Sankirna Vacana Samputa, Vol. 2; Department of Kannada Culture, Government

2.

of Karnataka,

for post-War

scientific research’ (National

printed 1980). 3.

Bangalore,

1993).

as an The quote from Vannevar Bush (who incidentally was trained a Frontier, Endless the Science: from electrical engineer) is taken me report submitted by him in 1945 to the US president on ‘a program

Rutherford’s assessment

Science

Foundation,

re-

of nuclear energy, made in 1933 at a British

‘article’ in Association meeting, is quoted by E. Mendelsohn, 1997, Century, NethJ. Krige and D. Pestre (eds.) Science in the Twentieth

and G.W. Szilard erlands: Harwood; see also H.S. Hawkins, G.A. Greb MA: MIT Press, a (eds.) 1987, Toward a Livable World, Cambridge,

4. 5.

Szilard (well fascinating account of the life and work of Leo Szilard. to President known as the person who persuaded Einstein to write me to build program a e undertak US the that urging 1939 in Roosevelt chain reacand fission nuclear on nuclear bombs) actually had patents et d! discovere were they before well tions and M. Norton An interesting study of Lord Kelvin is Crosbie Smith dge University Press. Wise, 1989, Energy and Empire, Cambridge: Cambri market failures, and On several examples of technologically-driven

1991, ‘Pondering the unanticipated market, successes, see R.W. Lucky,

in H.E. Sladovich (ed.), unpredictability of the Sociotechnical System’, D.C.: National Acadgton Washin ise, Engineering as a Social Enterpr in Silicon Valley, see the s’ ‘failure on es attitud For ring. Enginee of emy Advanfascinating account of Anna Lee Saxenian,

tage, Harvard University Press.

1994/96, Regional

In particular, she says (pp. 38, 39),

was socially acceptable. Not only was risk-taking glorified, but failure could be a successful anyone There was a shared understanding that

134 M

Roddam Narasimha

entrepreneur: there were no boundaries of age, status, or social stratum that precluded the possibility of a new beginning; and there was little embarrassment associated with failure. In fact, the list of individuals who failed, even repeatedly, only to succeed later, was

well known within the region.

Also (pp. 54, 55): ‘If they are fired or leave here [in Silicon Valley] it doesn’t mean very much. They just go off and do something else.’ On the recent arguments about pipe flow, see for e.g., G.I. Barenblatts, A.J. Chorin and V.M. Prostokishin, 1997, ‘Analysis of Experimental Investigations of Self-similar Intermediate Structures in Zero-pressure-gradient Boundary Layers at Large Reynolds Numbers’, Applied Mechanics Reviews, 94:61. For a brief survey of the nature of the turbulence problem, see R. Narasimha, 1993. ‘Turbulence on Computers’, Current Science, 64: 28-32. The Second Law of Thermodynamics can be stated in many different forms, of which the one proposed by Kelvin reads: ‘It is impossible to devise an engine which, working in a cycle, shall produce no effect other than the extraction of heat from a reservoir and the performance of an equal amount of mechanical work’. More abstract and mathematical formulations have indeed since been offered, but the Kelvin-type statement is still widely used. See A.B. Pippard, 1957, The Elements of Classical Thermodynamics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The quotation from Newton is from Book III of the Principia, where he lays down ‘Rules of reasoning in philosophy’. Rule I says:

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous

(My italics.) See e.g., S. Chandrasekhar, the Common

10.

Ne

Reader,

Oxford: Clarendon

such as To this in vain, pleased causes.

1995, Newton’s Principia for Press, p. 345.

On engineering knowledge, see W.G.Vincenti, 1990, What Engineers Know and How They Know It, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Universi ty Press; also R. Narasimha, 1993, ‘Technology Policy in a Liberaliz ing Economy’, Current Science, 64:494-502. The very different nature of the flow of information in technology as compared to that in science is discussed by T.J. Allen, 1984, Managing the Flow of Technolog y, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. The history of science and technology in China has been extensively studied in a series of volumes by J. Needham, 1954-98, Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge: Cambridge Univers ity Press. Much of the material on the history of rocket technolo gy is taken from R. Narasimha, 1985, Rockets in Mysore and Britain, 1750-1850 A.D.

Science, [echnology and Society M 135

Project

Document

DU8503,

National

Aerospace

Laboratories,

Bangalore, which contains many references on the history of rockets and of Tipu. Some of these (including those specifically quoted in this chapter)

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

are: D. Baker,

1978, The Rocket,

London:

New

Cavendish

Books; R. Cargill Hall, 1986, History of Rockets and Astronautics, Vol. 7, Pts I, Il, San Diego: American Astronautical Society; D. Forrest, 1970, Tiger of Mysore, London: Chatto & Windus; E. Ley, 1958, Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel, London: Chapman & Hall; C.H. Rao, 1943, History of Mysore, Bangalore: Government Press; W. von Braun, F-I. Ordway, III, 1966, History of Rocketry and Space Travel, London: Nelson; M. Wilks, 1810, Historical Sketches of the South of India, in an Attempt to Trace the History of Mysoor (Reprinted 1930, Government of Mysore).The encounter of Wellesley/Wellington with rockets in the Anglo-Mysore Wars, especially the ‘Sultanpettah incident’, is described in P. Guedalla, 1940, The Duke, London: World Books Reprint Society. The quote from A. Pacey, 1976, is taken from The Culture of Technology, Cambridge: MIT Press. There is vast literature on the industrial revolution; some material here is taken from T.K. Derry and T.I. Williams, 1960, A Short History of Technology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. For a very interesting analysis of the shifts in global economic strength since the 15th century, see A.G. Frank, 1996, ‘India in the World Economy, 1400-1750’, Economic & Political Weekly, 27 July, PE 50-64; and Frank,1998, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, New Delhi: Vistaar Publications. On Sukra-niti, see G. Oppert (1880/1967), On the Weapons, Army Organization and Political Maxims of the Ancient Hindus,

Ahmedabad: New Order Books. recent There are many accounts of the history of Indian metallurgy; a Anin Metals and Minerals 1996, Biswas, S. one is AK. Biswas and

text of cient India, 2 vols. Delhi: D.K. Print World. The full na‘Rasa-rat 1987, Biswas, A.K. in available is ya Rasaratnasamucca

century samuccaya and Mineral Processing: State-of-Art in the 13th The 22:29-46. Science, of History the of Journal Indian A.D. India’, drdham verse quoted (6.71) reads, in the original Sanskrit : rasa-vidya nirviryo gopya matur.guhyam.iva dhruvam / bharét viryavati gupta origithe ; Rasakalpa from is quoted verse ca prakasanat | / The other sitah / nal reads: saksat anubhavair.drsto na sruto guru.dar vol. 2, Biswas & lokanam.upakaraya état sarvam nivéditam // (p. 184, of Technology Biswas op. cit.). See also A.K. Bag, (ed.), 1997, History in India, New

Delhi: Indian National Science Academy.

The widely

misprint of wook, used word wootz (for South Indian steel) arose as a in the Oxford from Kannada ukku or wukku (see entry under wootz of Indian history the on books recent Other English Dictionary). metallurgy are: T.R. Anantharaman,

1996, The Rustless

Wonder: A

Prasar; Raj Baldev, Study of the Iron Pillar at Delhi, New Delhi: Vigyan Come Alive: A Gods Where 2000, C. Rajagopalan, C.V. Sundaram, Delhi: Vigyan New India, South of Icons Bronze the on h Monograp Prasar.

136 HM Roddam Narasimha

Lie

The quotation from Al-Biruni is taken from the translation by E.C. Sachau, 1888, Al-Biruni’s India (reprinted 1964, Delhi). An abridged edition (ed. Q. Ahmed) is also available (National Book Trust, 1983). Incidentally, Saxenian (op.cit.) contrasts the formal, hierarchical, secret, self-sufficient and riskaverse culture of industries on Route 128 (an area near Boston, MA, with

18.

many high-technology firms) with the informal, egalitarian, open, frank, cooperative, competitive, risk-friendly culture of Silicon Valley. On the question of the way technologies were accepted or ignored, see A.J. Qaisar, 1998, The Indian Response to European

19%

20.

Technology and

Culture, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Qaisar concludes was no in-built resistance in India (during Mogul times) technologies. They were in fact selectively accepted, but there was.an “alternative” or “appropriate” indigenous

that there to foreign ‘as long as technology

which

degree, the

could serve

the needs

of Indians

to a reasonable

European counterpart was understandably passed over’. The connections between craftsmanship and Indian sacred art are discussed in very broad terms by A.K. Coomaraswamy, (1934) 1965, The Transformation of Nature in Art, New York: Dover Publications. A vivid portrait of the caste system, as it operated in the late 1940s ina village some 20 km from Tipu’s capital Srirangapattana, is available in the fascinating account of M.N. Srinivas,

1976/97, The Remembered

Village, Delhi:

Oxford University Press. On castes among Muslims in India, for example, see article by Zarina Bhatty, 1996, ‘Social Stratification Among Muslims in

India’, in M.N. Srinivas, Caste: its Twentieth Century Avatar, Penguin India.

The secret practices of a metal-working community are described by Jan Brouwer, 1995, Makers of the World: Caste, Craft and Mind of South Indian Artisans, Delhi: Oxford University Press.

21.

22)

On Aryabhata’s mathematics and astronomy, see K.S. Shukla and K.V. Sarma, 1976, Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata, Delhi: Indian National Science Academy; and B.V. Subbarayappa and N. Mukunda, 1995 (ed.), Science in the West and India: Some Historical Aspects, New Delhi: Himalaya Publishing House.

One of the rare cases that I am aware of, involving a discussion of

technological projects in a classical Indian work on ‘science’, is the pair of proposals for a perpetual motion machine contained in Siddhanta

Stromani (12th c.) by Bhaskara II. Bhaskara’s notion (like many others of that kind) travelled to Europe via the Arabs, and led there to a vigorous effort to design and construct perpetual motion machines: the trajectory of this idea has been traced in a fascinating account by Lynn White Jr., 1978, Medieval Religion and Technology, Los Angeles: University of California Press, kindly brought to my attention by Prof. M.N. Srinivas. It was only in the 19th century that the futility of the chase was realised. It is interesting to recall that the famous Treatise on Thermodynamics by Max Planck (1897/1926; Dover Reprint) states the first and second laws of thermodynamics in terms of the impossibility of constructing perpetual motion machines of the first and second kind respectively. The (impossible) technologic al dream of perpetual motion led to energy science and thermodynamics, just as that other equally impossible dream of alchemy led to modern chemistry.

IV Challenge, Response and Serendipity in the Design of Materials

_Roeert W. CAHN

INTRODUCTION The British historian Arnold Toynbee, in his ambitious multivolume History of the World, introduced the concept of ‘challenge and response’, the notion that throughout history, one nation, one class, one religion, one army, challenged another and was met, usually, by a forceful response to the challenge. In this way, empires, civilisations, religions and dominant classes alternated, according to the challenge or the response that prevailed. The same has happened, in a less dramatic form, in the development of new materials. One family of materiats (for instance, silicon iron in transformer laminations) enjoyed maximum market share for a long time, without much change for many years; thena challenger came with better properties (here, metallic glass) and the makers of the dominant material responded by working very hard to improve their ancient product in a hurry. This response would not have happened without the challenge. However, not all innovations are determined by this kind of ‘force of arms’: accident plays its part in this process too, as it does in all aspects of human life. As we know, ‘accident favours the prepared mind’, and if accident, mental preparedness and

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sheer good luck come happily together, what we get is serendipity. This curious word derives from the legendary Prince Serendip of old Ceylon, who always had flawless good luck (that is why he was legendary). Serendipity requires good luck, but that is never enough. The innovator must be able to recognise what is staring him in the face, and that in turn requires years of experience, plus open-mindedness. Many important materials innovations stem from sheer serendipity. I outlined some of these a few years ago.' In this chapter, I propose to outline a few episodes in the history of materials technology that illustrate these distinct approaches to innovation, and at the same time discuss the published sources of such episodes.

SERENDIPITY AGE-HARDENING Age-hardening was discovered in 1906, as every student of metallurgy learns in his first undergraduate year by Alfred Wilm, the head of the newly established metallurgical section in a German government research institute near Berlin (though, in the leisurely manner of those days, he did not publish his findings for another five years). In the course of a wholly empirical search for strong aluminium alloys, Wilm examined an alloy containing 4 wt% of Cu, 0.5 wt% of Mg and 0.5wt% of Mn, in the cast-androlled condition (later called ‘duralumin’). He examined its indentation hardness on a Saturday, went off for a leisurely weekend (yes, metallurgists enjoyed leisure time in those days) and on returning next Monday, repeated his measurements, just to be sure. The alloy was now 40 per cent harder than before. Wilm knew better than to shrug off this finding as a result of mere careless measurement. He repeated the experiment properly and determined the first age-hardening isotherm. (Wilm’s original paper of 1911 appears in translation in an excellent little book by Martin.’) By 1914, duralumin was being used to build airships to bombard the British enemy.

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This discovery was clearly serendipitous, but not sufficiently so, because there was no basis available for finding any other age-hardening alloys. Harvard metallurgist Albert Sauveur reported to the US Air Service in 1918 that he did not know of any other metal or alloy exhibiting a similar phenomenon, so that analogy did not help. Thereupon in 1919, Paul Merica, a metallurgist at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, studied the solubility of copper (Wilm’s predominant solute) in aluminium as a function of temperature, using simple optical micrography, and found that the solubility increased sharply with rising temperature.’ The secret of age-hardening was now manifest: it clearly depended upon the precipitation of the equilibrium phase from a supersaturated solid solution (in duralumin this happens slowly at room temperature, highly surprising in itself). Of course, like all confident generalisations, this one was only partly true. In fact, it is a metastable precursor of the stable phase, CuAl.,, that achieves the hardening, which by the time the stable phase forms, is all over. Also, we now know that much of the hardening in this particular alloy comes from the precursor of the Mg,Si phase rather than from CuAl,; the Si here is an unintended and unsuspected impurity. However, once it was known that an increasing solubility with rising temperature was the key, a simple inspection of phase diagrams, or a few days’ work to establish the relevant part of anew phase agediagram, sufficed to point the finger at new potential hardening systems. Serendipitous observation always needs to be supplemented tion by systematic investigation: it requires a degree of inspira sudhas that ry discove chance the of to recognise the potential to needs tion inspira that know all we denly presented itself, and ation! perspir of e be complemented by an overdos

FLectRIC LIGHT FILAMENTS ic lamp, he was When Edison invented the incandescent electr ents; he began with plagued by endless difficulties with his filam to produce an efcharred organic material and never managed t fell to William fective metallic filament. That achievemen

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Coolidge, the remarkable metallurgist who eventually directed the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, NY (he also gave his name to the modern type of X-ray tube). In 1913, Coolidge took out a US patent on ductile tungsten, made by powder metallurgy, which allowed ultrafine filaments to be drawn down from a metal rod. For such filaments to be useful,

they had to have a long life. Two features were noted to limit this life: one was evaporation from the tungsten to deposit on the lamp envelope, which soon became opaque (even before all the tungsten evaporated), and the other was the white-hot filament slipping apart along grain boundaries. Irving Langmuir, the Nobel-prize winning physical chemist who was Coolidge’s most distinguished colleague, cured the first problem by filling the lamp with a noble gas. The second problem was far more difficult, and Coolidge solved it with a classic exercise in serendipity, beginning in 1908. He noted that tungsten powder annealed in one particular make of crucible, imported from Germany, after sintering and drawing down did not have the grain boundary problem. Micrographic examination showed that in this batch, the grain boundaries were all longitudinal: this proved to be the essential microstructure that conferred long life on the filaments. Next, Coolidge followed up his lucky accident with systematic work: the successful tungsten powder was analysed and found to contain potassium and aluminium silicate, picked up from the refractory in the crucible. Thereafter, small amounts of these ‘dopants’ were added intentionally to the tungsten powder (with a shovel, on the shop floor); this is still done today (to the tungsten oxide precursor), even if a shovel is no longer used! Coolidge, who lived to became a centenarian, described his inspired innovation in a historical book‘ published in 1965, but he still did not know, 52 years later, why his dopant worked so well. It was discovered subsequently, by transmission electron microscopy, that the dopant produces microbubbles of potassium vapour during sintering; the drawing process draws these out into strings which act to constrain migration of the grain boundaries and thus to achieve the needful microstructure. The three doping constituents were needed to generate a fairly stable compound which only releases potassium vapour at a late stage in sintering, when

Challenge, Response and Serendipity in the Design of Materials

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porosity has closed. Here, as so often happens in the history of materials technology, the scientific explanation came long after successful practice was established. The historical stages, of both the technology and the science of tungsten lamp filaments, have been very clearly outlined by Welsch and Walter.® The specific circumstances of Coolidge’s researches on tungsten lamp filaments, and how they related to the emerging culture of the new GE Research Laboratory where the work was done, are set out in a fine biography of the first research director of the laboratory by George Wise.® This book however is more than the biography of a man: it is also the portrait of an emerging institution, and the more valuable for that.

THE BEGINNINGS OF SUPERALLOYS The development of the gas turbine, to power a jet engine, began independently in England and Germany at the end of the 1930s; from an early stage it had become clear that an utterly novel type of alloy would be required for the turbine blades and disc, and this led to acrash programme of alloy development, of what came to be called ‘superalloys’. The English side of this programme has been described by one of the chief protagonists, L.B. Pfeil,’ and an outline of this work and of the slightly later stages of superalloy improvement has been presented in a more accessible publication by Cahn.* Like the discovery of age-hardening and of ductile sintered tungsten, superalloy development began with a happy accident, acutely observed by a ‘prepared mind’. Development had begun with the test of 80/20 nichrome, long used for the filaments of domestic electric heaters. Different batches did not behave consistently and the best behaviour was traced to batches which had been contaminated with titanium and a little carbon, because of deoxidation of the melt with titanium (not a universal practice). Thereupon the titanium content was intentionally increased and a further improvement in properties resulted. There were still surprising variations, and at this stage a little science was injected, in the form of the determination of some partial ternary phase diagrams. A working hypothesis was now

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formulated, that of ‘marginal solubility’: the idea was that the best creep resistance required alloys with just more of each solute than was soluble at the service temperature. This idea arose because it had become clear that effective age-hardening alone was not enough to guarantee good creep resistance. The working hypothesis proved to be rather too simple, but it did serve as an ‘energiser’. This often happens in materials research as it does in ordinary human life: a false hypothesis leads to action which eventually reveals a better hypothesis. Another accident based on a false hypothesis led to the introduction of aluminium into superalloys, probably the most important improvement of all. This in turn led Taylor and Floyd’ to one of the great classics of phase diagram research, on the Ni-Al-Ti system, in which they were able to show that Ni,(Al,Ti) was the crucial precipitating phase. (As with the early understanding of age-hardening, a knowledge of relevant phase diagrams was a crucial precondition of effective progress; this is a common truth in metallurgical research.) Hereafter, development became even more science-based, with studies of lattice parameter misfit between the ordered and disordered phases as a function of alloying strategy and of the factors, including small misfit, that so effectively stabilise the ordered Ni,(AI,Ti) dispersion against coarsening. These stages, leading to the successive members of the famous NIMONIC series of superalloys manufactured in England, are described in Cahn’s overview. A recent, systematic survey of superalloys” fails to mention any aspect of the early development and presents superalloys as though they were an exclusively science-based success story; but then this volume is fixated on the American end of the superalloy story and the name ‘NIMONIC’ never appears in the book! Generally, many scientists are shy about citing any reference which is more than 10 years old lest they be considered outdated and (worse) backward, but by this omission, they fail to learn from history. The worst compromise is to cite old papers without having read them!

NANOFILTERS In 1967, the second major report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to the U.S. House of Representatives, following a

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formal agreement between the two bodies in 1963, was published in Washington." This was entitled Applied Science and Technological Progress, and it was the first of several memorable reports of this kind with a close bearing on materials. This splendid report, which is not well known and was hard to obtain even

at the time, deserves

renewed

attention,

maybe

even

republication. It includes, among many other items worth reading, a magnificent historical overview by Cyril Stanley Smith and thought-provoking essays by people like Harvey Brooks, Edward Teller, Alvin Weinberg and others. However, from my present perspective, the key chapter is the one by C. Guy Suits and Arthur M. Bueche, both past directors of research at General Electric in Schenectady, NY. Their article is titled ‘Cases of Research and Development in a Diversified Company’. This fascinating chapter records in detail the history of 10 innovations, most of them concerned with materials, and then goes on to draw a number of broad conclusions about the sources

and uses of applied research, about the role of patents and how researchers unearth the information they need (sometimes, without knowing that they need it) from diverse, sometimes unexpected sources. Each record starts with a narrative account of the sequence of events and concludes with a list of key personnel (with a few words about each individual), a list of patents for issued and some key publications. GE Corporate R&D has George many years employed a professional historian on its staff, earlier Wise—indeed, he is the author of the book mentioned clearly about the GE research laboratory—and his influence is s companie major more if fine be would It chapter. visible in the practice followed this policy. (Elsewhere, I have tried to place this e.'”) perspectiv broader a in n innovatio of of recording case histories (a diamonds artificial alia, inter include, Innovations here treated add might one )—today response and splendid case of challenge to this thin-film diamond and isotopically enriched diamonds l industria major (a breaker circuit story—and also a vacuum zoneof use the on entirely depend to product) which turned out electrodes in their refined copper to eliminate degassing of the crucial innovation This . enclosure permanently sealed vacuum on, and inconclusi l successfu took about 40 years to reach a ion of applicat useful cidentally represents the only recorded

144 M@ R.W. Cahn

zone-refined metals, as opposed to semiconductors. Yet another very major innovation described here in some detail was the creation of a large new industry, the production of high-temperature vapour lamps, with translucent alumina envelopes (glass or silica were useless), all springing unexpectedly from some fundamental research on the mechanism of sintering of alumina powder! This again was a classic example of serendipity, arising out of a chance encounter between ceramic researchers at the corporate research centre

and a lamp engineer from one of the factories. However, the most extraordinary episode recorded in the chapter refers to ‘etched particle tracks’. The work in question was undertaken in the 1960s by three well known physicists on the GE staff, R.M. Walker, P.B. Price and R.L. Fleischer. Suits and Bueche raise the question of why such very ‘pure’ research should be undertaken in an industrial laboratory. Part of their answer is: ... experience has shown repeatedly that studies begun solely to grapple with fundamental questions of science can be rewarding to industrial technology, providing advances for which there was no pre-existent need [italics mine], however strong that ‘need’ might become afterwards.

I wonder how many research directors would dare say this today! The original objective was to develop and study cosmic ray tracks in meteorites, and thereby develop a new method of geological and cosmological dating; in this it was successful. Part of the

research involved the creation of artificial tracks, by shooting

fission fragments from uranium through thin slivers of mica and ‘developing’ the tracks chemically. As a sideline, the investigators exploited their finding that an irradiated and etched mica sliver contained minute, submicron holes all exactly the same size. Through word of mouth this work came to the ears of

a cancer researcher in New York, who needed to isolate and

detect cancer cells in blood by filtering the blood through sieves that would hold back the larger, more rigid cancer cells while allowing smaller cells to pass through. Fleischer thereupon

Challenge, Response and Serendipity in the Design of Materials

™ 145

sought materials less fragile than mica to use for making such sieves, and found that GE’s own patented polymer, Lexan™ polycarbonate, served very well. The upshot was the creation of a small but lucrative industry manufacturing Nuclepore™ filters for biomedical research; this manufacture is still in existence and now several companies compete in producing such filters. This is one of the most convincing instances of serendipity known to me!

ASHLESS POLYMERS The commercially trained eye can often see possibilities that would never occur to the cloistered academic. A good instance of this comes from a small company in Pennsylvania. J.G. Santangelo from this company exploited the chemical researches done in Japan in the mid-1960s on copolymerisation of epoxies with carbon dioxide to produce, commercially, a family of polymers consisting about 50 per cent of CO,; these are generically named poly (alkylene carbonates).” Thermogravimetric analysis of such polymers (a normal investigative technique to check on thermal stability) showed that they decompose and burn cleanly at around 240°C. What was unusual, and perhaps to be expected in material containing so much CO,, was that the material left virtually no ash at all, less than 2 ppm. Accordingly, Santangelo offered this product as an ashless binder for ceramic and metal powders that are to be sintered, and as a substitute for expanded polystyrene in lostfoam casting. Clearly, the material is preferable to waxes which leave a sticky residue when heated. The foregoing examples indicate what a wide variety of innovations have resulted from serendipitous observations.

CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE TRANSFORMER LAMINATIONS

In 1899, Barrett and Hadfield in England stumbled upon the fact that silicon-iron containing 3-3.5 wt% of silicon shows low

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hysteresis when magnetised, and is also easy to process because the silicon suppresses the ferrite-austenite transformation. Ever since, silicon-iron sheets, coated with insulator to reduce eddy currents, have been used to make transformer laminations. Indeed, it is a very large industry worldwide.

The magnetic characteristics of the silicon-iron strip were further improved when Goss discovered how to generate a (110)[001] texture by secondary recrystallisation, which was beneficial because of the anisotropy of permeability in iron crystals. Between 1968 and 1977 various companies in Japan and the USA found ways of sharpening the texture and thereby achieying some further improvements in magnetic performance;" this work was clearly stimulated by normal commercial competition between rival manufacturers. Enter the challenger. In 1958, Pol Duwez in California, with his collaborators, discovered the first melt-quenched metallic glass in the Au-Si system (see historical overview by Cahn”), and the same year Gubanov in Russia first suggested that a metallic glass should be capable of having ferromagnetic properties, an idea which had not occurred to anyone previously. This was soon confirmed experimentally with iron- and cobalt-rich glasses. There was a gap of some years before this idea was followed up, but from the beginning of the 1970s the research gathered pace and in 1978 the first multiauthor volume on ‘Amorphous Magnetism’ was published. By the beginning of the 1980s, the subject was firmly established, with numerous research teams across the world. Furthermore, several manufacturers had begun to produce sheets of ‘soft’ ferromagnetic glasses with high permeability and low coercive field, up to a foot or so in width, using ingenious developments in rapid solidification technology; an American firm was particularly aggressive in this field. It was striking that three distinct research teams independently optimised the composition of such glass for transformer uses and came up with virtually identical compositions based on Fe-Si-B with, sometimes, a little carbon. Such glasses have the following advantages over silicon-iron: no appreciable intrinsic anisotropy of permeability (although a favourable anisotropy can be induced by field-annealing), very low intrinsic magnetic losses, and a high electrical resistivity which reducesin- , plane eddy current losses. A disadvantage is the fact that the

Challenge, Response and Serendipity in the Design of Materials

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saturation magnetisation is somewhat lower than in crystalline alloys. Overall, the core loss in metallic glass laminations was found to be an order of magnitude lower than for 3 wt% silicon-

iron. At this point, the transformer manufacturers began showing serious interest, especially in the US and Japan, in connection

with ‘distribution transformers’, located near individual consumers to transform voltage down to 110 V (this market does not exist in Europe). Such transformers are small enough to utilise the glass sheet with its limited width, and enormous numbers are required every year. The Electric Power Research Institute in California commissioned a large-scale industrial trial of metallic glasses in these products. Starting from about 1980, the steel makers read the writing to on the wall, and began to fight back. The first approach was iron, silicontry to increase the silicon content in (crystalline) . thereby enhancing the resistivity and reducing eddy currents same the ed Ironically, to achieve this the steel makers exploit rapid technique which made metallic glasses possible, namely, the was wt% solidification processing (RSP). Until then, 3.5

than this practical limit of silicon concentration, since any more intoa rolled led to great brittleness and so the alloy could not be wt% 6.5 to up sheet. RSP allowed ductile silicon-iron to be made with but s) of silicon. Usually this was without texture (a weaknes , anneals and with elaborate processing involving several rollings

at considerable an ideal (100)[001] texture could be achieved, albeit ial price cost (e.g., see Kan et al., 1982 16) In 1982, the commerc

that of the of a metallic glass sheet was still about 10 times makers’ alarm cheapest oriented iron-silicon sheet, so the steel shown by Smith,” might have seemed premature. However, as as indeed the by 1990 the price differential had disappeared, previously. It glass manufacturers had predicted six years was not enough seemed that the 3.5 > 6.5 wt% solute shift suggests that the to fight off the challenge (although Smith in electric motor enriched silicon-irons may have a rosy future more important than laminations, where price is considerably performance). y those in Japan) In the late 1980s, the steel makers (especiall ple can be seen in a became more sophisticated. A good exam

148 M@ R.W. Cahn

pair of papers by Inokutiet al.,'* entitled ‘Grain-oriented silicon steel sheet with new ceramic films characterized by ultra-low iron loss’ and ‘Ultra-low loss in grain-oriented silicon steel sheet with TiN films produced by the CVD method’. This work refers to commercial 3.3 wt% silicon-iron with the usual Goss texture. The sheet was chemically polished and then either CrN, TiN or TiC was ion-plated (physically deposited with a hollow cathode discharge) on the sheet while that was held under tension. The result was that the surface layers of the sheet were under strong tension and this led to a sharply reduced stress dependence of

magnetostriction and in turn to a 40 per cent reduction in core loss. Coatings to enhance surface stress have long been used, but this approach takes the technique to a new level of sophistication. Nothing is said about commercial costs, so one cannot judge how this approach changes the commercial balance-sheet! A recent article on the economics of magnetic materials” estimates the cost of conventional high quality transformer steel at half the cost of metallic glass sheet, but that does not allow for the cost of the recent Japanese improvements. In that connection, Inokuti”° (a Japanese research manager) has written to me about this matter, and opines that when the total cost (making the material plus the cost of shaping it into a transformer core) is estimated, then the crystalline silicon-iron with its newly enhanced properties will prove to be fully competitive with metallic glass, which is relatively difficult to assemble into complex forms. The crucial role of such economic factors in today’s technol ogy, even at the very ‘high-tech’ level where one might have expected performance considerations to drown out money costs, has been convincingly highlighted recently by Willia ms” in an overview of novel materials which are trying to challenge the dominance of superalloys in jet engines.

STRONG Fipres

Fibre reinforced composites with polymeric, metall ic or ceramic matrices are being improved constantly; both their strength and temperature capability are being constantly enhan ced. The variety

Challenge, Response and Serendipity in the Design of Materials

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of reinforcing fibres available in the market today constitute a prime illustration of challenge and response. The rivals include crystal whiskers (the strongest and the most expensive); ultrafine metalwires, including so-called Taylor wires; glass fibres; boron fibres, usually on a tungsten core; silicon carbide fibres, made by several entirely distinct processes; carbon fibres, again made by different processes, alumina fibres; and a variety of strong polymeric fibres, notably Kevlar and polyethylene. Historically, glass fibres for reinforcing cheap epoxy polymers came first, and they continue to hold the less expensive end of the market. The strong polymeric fibres were a response to the dominance of the glass fibres, which in turn were improved by composition changes to stand up to the chemical environment of a cement matrix (the cheapest of all). Whiskers (never more than 1-2 mm in length) evoked great interest because of their exotic manner of production, but in spite of recurrent flickers of life, they cannot really compete anymore with modern continuous fibres. Carbon fibres made from a polyacrylonitrile precursor started in Japan and were soon perfected in Britain, and they increasingly hold the expensive end of the low temperature market. (I am wearing a pair of ultralight spectacles with carbon-fibre-reinforced frames as I type this article.) A challenge however came from Japan later, where in 1975 Yajima was able to make SiC fibres from a polymeric precursor. It however took a long time for these to make inroads into the market, and Yajima became so discouraged that he ended up taking his own life. Soon after, however, his fibres became a commercial

success

and hold a special place for high temperature uses today. Boron and alumina fibres are even more expensive but are beginning to make inroads in defence uses where cost is secondary. The commercial balance remains uncertain and the battle continues. An early, brief critical discussion of alternative fibres was published in a special issue of the journal Materials Science and Engineering titled ‘Challenges and Opportunities in Materials Science and Engineering’; the authors were Chou and Kelly.” Later, Kelly critically discussed the modes of manufacture, merits and weaknesses of rival reinforcing fibres and wires in his standard text,’ while a more recent comparison comes in a new

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volume on composites.” The whole field is a prime example of challenge and response in action.

NANOSTRUCTURED WC-Co ‘Harp METALS’ Nanostructured materials have been the subject of very rapidly increasing research for about seven years now. In 1991, they achieved a status of their own in the form of a dedicated journal. I surveyed the early stages in the progress of this impressive bandwagon in 1988 and 1990; these articles have recently been reprinted.” One of the first proper commercial applications of these materials with submicron-scale microstructures refers to the familiar, long established ‘hard metal’, widely used for making metal-cutting tools in particular. They consist of hard, brittle tungsten carbide crystals dispersed in a softer, ductile cobalt matrix. This material is facing increasing competition from rivals such as sialon, oxides and indeed diamond layers deposited by CVD. There was thus a good marketing reason for aiming towards a major improvement in hard metal. Kear and McCandlish of Rutgers University in New Jersey have developed such an improvement in the past four years, and have reported on it in the new journal.”° Normally, a hard metal block is made by co-sintering (and perhaps hot isostatically pressing) a mixture of WC and Co powders, making the microstructure quite coarse. Kear and McCandlish learnt from chemical engineering practice, and started from an organometallic precursor, cobalt tris(ethylenediamine) tungstate, which after spray-drying and then thermo-chemical conversion in a fluid bed reactor gave WC-23 wt% Co powder. Careful control of gas composition and temperature to achieve rapid and controllable carburisation was an essential component of the process. The incorporation of some VC to inhibit grain growth was found essential. In this way, a very fine-structured product can be made, and this, as expected, resisted cracking to much higher stresses than the conventional product. This in turn allows faster machining when the new product is used for cutting tools. Kear and McCandlish opine that their ‘spray conversion processing’

Challenge, Response and Serendipity in the Design of Materials

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has a lot of unrealised potential for producing other flawless, nanostructured materials also.

LEARNING FROM HISTORY These few instances of the two categories of innovative ‘high-tech’ materials presented here could be multiplied manifold. Some are at an early stage of development, such as systematic design of advanced steels from first principles or the commercial production of diamond films from the vapour phase, others are further developed, such as magneto-optical memories for computers. ic I would leave the reader with one thought. Too few academ records d detaile groups and indeed industrial companies keep s of of the kind that would permit systematic historical account be to t produc the genesis, growth and maturity of a new The 1960s. the assembled, in the way that GE was able to doin to learn whole research and development community has much ment govern for from such accounts: perhaps a case can be made tic systema of financing of such innovative histories, and perhaps such ion, comparative studies of success and failure of innovat recorded in my as the British ‘Sappho’ study of the 1970s. As there were 1970 paper (mentioned earlier), during the 1960s ed with surfeit many such studies. Today we are perhaps too at such ly precise information to be able to cope. However, it is are es histori a time that reviews, surveys and concise particularly valuable. the same general There are increasing numbers of books of earlier) of the early type as Wise’s pioneering account (mentioned is coeval with the history of GE’s research laboratory (which h type, not focussed century). Early books were of a broad-brus is The Sources of on specific laboratories. A good example edition 1969).2’ Invention (first edition 1958, second

A more

am and Bettye Pruitt’s focussed, recent book is Margaret Grah of the research and study” of the foundation and development Company of America development laboratories of the Aluminum (ALCOA).

The authors work for the Winthrop

Group, which

and business, and their specialises in the history of technology

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book was commissioned by ALCOA. This book makes fascinating reading, especially (but not only) for metallurgists. Unfortunately, personality clashes delayed the creation of the laboratory; there were prolonged (and ultimately doomed) efforts to find a completely new process for extracting aluminium from its oxide. As the company’s business culture changed with a succession of chief executives, the degree of independence of the laboratory changed repeatedly, and attitudes also changed with regard to diversification (away from aluminium) and to the degree of professional recognition that the denizens of the laboratory warranted in regard to their standing with the world research community, which to some degree was perceived as being in conflict with their status as good company people. This kind of overarching issue emerges most illuminatingly from a history of this kind when written by skilled historians who also understand scientific research. Another excellent book of a similar type is devoted to. the history of R&D in the Du Pont Company” which has been undertaking in-house research almost as long as GE. Such books, about large individual companies, are complemented by even more focussed books about individual industrial scientists, such as Liebhafsky’s slim biography” of William Coolidge, the centenarian metallurgist at GE mentioned earlier in this chapter. I suggest that a revival of a systematic historiography of industrial research, and also of distinguished industrial researchers, is overdue and warrants close attention from those in a position to pay for it and to learn from the results.

NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4,

R.W. Cahn, S. Ranganathan and V.S. Arunachalam, 1981, in Alloy Design, Bangalore: Indian Academy of Sciences, pp. 3-8. J.W. Martin, 1968, Precipitation Hardening, Oxford: Pergamon Press, pp. 103-14. P.D. Merica, R.G. Waltenberg and H. Scott, 1920, Trans AIME, 64: 41. W.D. Coolidge, 1965, in C.S. Smith (ed.), The Sorby Centennial Symposium on the History of Metallurgy, pp. 443-49, New York: Gordon and Breach.

Challenge, Response and Serendipity in the Design of Materials

Ml 153

G. Welsch and J.L. Walter, 1990, in R.W. Cahn (ed.), Supplementary

Volume 2 to the Encyclopedia of Materials Science and Engineering, pp. 1007-12, Oxford: Pergamon Press. G. Wise, 1985, Whillis R. Whitney: General Electric and the Origins of U.S. Industrial Research, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 132-137. L.B. Pfeil, 1963, in H. Brooks et al. (ed.), Advances in Materials Re-

search in the NATO

Nations, published for the Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development, AGARD by Pergamon Press, p. 407. R.W. Cahn,

1973, Journal of Metals (AIME),

February issue, p. 1.

A. Taylor and R.W. Floyd, 1951-52, Journal of Institute of Metals, 80: BY7. J.K. Tien and T. Caulfield, 1989, Superalloys, Supercomposites and Superceramics,

New

York: Academic

Press.

See Applied Science and Technological Progress, 1967, National Academy of Sciences, Washington: US Government Printing Office, prepared by the Committee on Science and Public Policy of the U.S. Acad-

emy of Sciences and published for the Committee on Science and Astronautics of the U.S. House of Representatives, pp. 297-346. R.W. Cahn, 1970, Nature, 225: 693.

J.G. Santangelo and J.C. Tao, 1990, in R.W. Cahn (ed.), Supplementary Volume 2 to the Encyclopedia of Materials Science and Engineering, Oxford: Pergamon Press, pp. 1192-96. F-E. Luborsky, J.D. Livingston and G.Y. Chin, 1983, in Physical Metal-

lurgy, 3rd edition, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co, p. 1703. R.W. Cahn, 1993, in H.H. Liebermann

(ed.), Rapidly Solidified Alloys,

New York: Marcel Dekker, pp. 1-16. T. Kan, Y. Ito and H. Shimanaka, 1982, Journal of Magn. Magn Mater, 26: 127. C.H. Smith, 1993, in H.H. Liebermann (ed.), Rapidly Solidified Alloys, New York: Marcel Dekker, pp. 617-63. Y. Inokuti, K. Suzuki and Y. Kobayashi, 1992, Materials Transactions, Japan Institute of Metals, 33: 946; Y. Inokuti, K. Suzuki and Y. Kobayashi, 1993, Materials Transactions, Japan Institute of Metals,

34: 622. T. Abraham, 1995, JOM (formerly Journal of Metals), 47(1): 16. Y. Inokuti, 1994, (December), private communication with author.

J.C. Williams, 1996, ‘Materials requirements of high-temperature structures in the 21st century’, in R.W. Cahn, A.G. Evans and M. McLean

(eds.), pp. 17-31, High-temperature Structural Materials, London: Chapman and Hall. T.W. Chou and A. Kelly, 1976, Materials Science and Engineering, 25035. A. Kelly, 1986, Strong Solids, 3rd Edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press. A. Parvizi-Majidi, 1993, in Materials Science and Technology, Weinheim: VCH, 13: 25-88. R.W. Cahn, 1992, Artifice and Artefacts, Bristol and Philadelphia: IOP Publishing, pp. 32,43.

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26. 27. 28.

29.

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B.H. Kear and L.E. McCandlish, 1993, in Nanostructured Materials, 3:19. J. Jewkes, D. Sawers and R. Stillerman, 1969, The Sources of Invention, 2nd edition, London: Macmillan. M.B.W. Graham and B.H. Pruitt, 1990, R&D for Industry: A Century

of Technical Innovation at Alcoa, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. D.A. Hounshell and J.K. Smith, 1988, Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R&D, 1902-1980, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

30.

H.A.

Liebhafsky,

1974, William David

his Work, New York: Wiley.

Coolidge:

A Centenarian

and

V The Science and Art of Processing Materials K. BALASUBRAMANIAN AND P. RAMA RAO

INTRODUCTION

Our planet earth may be seen as a gigantic system that has, in its continuing evolution, processed primordial materials into what may be called natural macro-products—in the earth’s crust, mantle and core, the oceans, the atmosphere and the flora and fauna. These ‘macro-products’ are made up of a multitude of diverse ‘micro-products’ in simple as well as in complex forms and characteristics. Natural processes obey ‘phenomenological laws’, the understanding of which offers insight into the processes and evolving patterns and, more importantly, provides knowledge about the natural variables at play. Further, mankind has over millennia learnt the art of manipulation of these variables, which has permitted simulation, alteration and regulation of the ‘natural processes’ in small controlled systems so as to provide a multitude of processed materials or material products starting from the earth’s natural micro-products. In technology, conversion of a basic material into a marketable product involves a host of issues which together make up the materials technology development endeavour. Two of the core issues pertain to (a) the development of the basic materials per se and (b) the development of an appropriate process to produce shaped products. While the materials development activities have been the purview of materials scientists largely in the academic arena, the process developments have come more often from in-house research and development units of the

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materials industry. Invariably, the science of materials and of their synthesis and characterisation, which brought new materials into being, proceeded at a pace not matched by the associated process development for obtaining marketable products (a recent example being the warm ceramic superconductor materials and products based on them). It is the appreciation of this aspect that has given rise to major advances in materials processing during recent times, and the aim of this chapter is to present a brief perspective on the salient features involved in process developments.

Basic MATERIALS VS MATERIAL PRODUCTS A basic material is defined by its chemical composition and properties, as well as certain standardised process treatments. A material product on the other hand is a semi-finished product, or a component or sub-assembly of components, or an assembly or even a system of assemblies. A product is made from appropriate materials to well defined specifications and often possesses an engineered surface. While the basic material is defined by its properties, a product is defined by its performance characteristics and its ability to meet certain functional requirements over a lifespan in a service environment. This requires testing, quality assurance and product acceptance norms. A material which is the end result of materials development exercises (scientific know-why) is converted into a product in a technology development effort (technical know-how) wherein the processes play the quintessential linking role. In today’s world of technology one can conceive of a product vector which marks the translation from materials development to materials technology development. The latter includes and starts with the former, but proceeds further to incorporate a product creation process from the basic material(s). The product creation process! encompasses the following: (a) There is first an information phase wherein a knowledge base about market needs, new applications, improvements and strategic needs are collated, analysed and distilled; (b) the distilled information is converted into tangible ‘product ideas —a process that

The Science and Art of Processing Materials Ml 157

is typified by creative cross fertilisation and innovations and improvements on existing ideas, and a screening and selection process (usually based on precursor evaluation and rapid prototyping techniques) to pick out potential winners or models from a host of product ideas; (c) the chosen product(s) then go through a design phase, at the end of which the specifications are frozen; (d) from here process technologies come into the picture, and a multitude of core competencies and capabilities are pooled to obtain an optimum product-process integration (manufacturability) which forms the product technology strategy or, in other words, the basic technical know-how; (e) thereafter progress takes place at a breathtaking speed in the design of tools and equipment, leading to (f) engineering of prototypes, followed by (g) pilot production and trial runs, market introduction, feedback and solution of initial problems, finally resulting in (h) commercial manufacturing. Today, to this gamut of ac-

tivities must be added a consideration of environmental effects of the product and the technology and issues pertaining to packaging, shipment, storage reusability, disposability and product support. Thus, materials technology development becomes a systems development activity. While clear distinctions between the basic material and a material product can be made, it is important to note that the graduation from one to the other is achieved via processes. Thus a product is considered as an output of a process or a sequence of processes, viz., technical processes, information processes and managerial processes. In modern manufacturing terminology, a product is also defined as what the customer requires and the customer in turn is defined as the next process step.” Product exemplifies and is synonymous with value addition, and product creation implies value addition with technical information and managerial process inputs, the costs of such processes being less than the value added to render the product and the process technologies economically viable. To summarise, one can say that the product and the process are conjugate. Product and process developments, together with materials development, make up the core of a materials technology development endeavour. Elucidation of all of the aforementioned issues is necessary in order to portray the progression from a basic material to a

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K. Balasubramanian and P Rama Rao

marketable product; this would be beyond the scope of a single article. The attempt here is to highlight the role of processes in the metamorphosis of a material into a product. A concept of processing space is introduced and a perspective on materials processing and salient process developments is presented in terms of this processing space.

MATERIALS PROCESSING: NATURAL PROCESSES AND PROCESS

SPACE

PROCESSES AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL

LAWS

All natural products can be considered as multicomponent and multiphase systems tending towards equilibrium. It is the energetics of these systems that govern their separation, dissociation, combination and transformation, and thereby also their characteristics. The phenomenological laws of energetics, which describe the progression of these systems towards equilibrium, form the basis for all our understanding of materials and their transformations. The thermodynamic driving force for any process may be understood in terms of the quantity usually called the ‘free energy’, and its rates of change (or ‘partial derivatives’) known as the thermodynamic potentials. The free energy of a multicomponent system may generally be written as

G=G(T,P,N,,N,...,Xy X,...) where T, P are the absolute temperature and pressure respectively, N,, N,,... describe the (molar) quantities of the species in the system, and X,, X,, ... refer to such external parameters as strain, electrical and magnetic variables etc. The fluxes, defined by the well known thermokinetic phenomenological laws such as in diffusion, heat and momentum transfer and charge flux, are to a first approximation directly proportional to their corresponding potential gradients. The processing of materials is principally described by these potentials

The Science and Art of Processing Materials Ml 159

and the attendant fluxes, occurring at macroscopic and microscopic levels ina process system. In practice, the potentials, say temperature, pressure and chemical potential (partial molar free energy) are varied by extensive parameters such as input or extraction of heat, application or withdrawal of force, change of volume and number of moles of species respectively. Thus the processes are to be controlled and manipulated by the quantum of mass and energy inputs and outputs which in turn define the span of the potentials associated with the materials processing system. The potentials (being the partial quantities of the free energy) are intensive and independent of the mass and size of the system; therefore a process space can be defined in terms of a range of potentials, say pressure and temperature. A perspective on materials processing is obtained if one considers typical values of the potentials realised in various processes.

Process SPACE Figure 5.1 depicts various materials processes on a pressure temperature (or P-T) process space map.’ It is interesting to note that natural processes occur in almost all regions depicted in this diagram. From the high temperature/high pressure processes occurring in the sun and the stars as well as in the interior of the earth and other planets, to low temperature/low pressure processes in outer space, matter exists and is continuously processed and transformed both naturally and by mankind. Mankind can only mimic nature on earth in a small window of this vast processing space, and even that humble ability has allowed the manufacturing of a myriad material products! It is evident that, historically, materials processing would have begun at a pressure of one atmosphere, and by virtue of heat input from the combustion of readily available natural fuels higher and higher temperatures were obtained. The manipulation of just one potential, namely temperature, enabled production of a multitude of new processed products. Addition and combination of different input materials was the next progressive step which allowed deliberate use of the chemical potential

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K. Balasubramanian and P. Rama Rao

10

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(b) Strip casting technologies Figure 5.2

Near-net shape products and processes

The Science and Art of Processing Materials Ml 175

forms. The fundamental studies*® on rapid solidification led to the understanding of techniques for obtaining metastable, amorphous and microcrystalline phases. Very high cooling rates (around a million degrees per second) that are employed to obtain the metastable and amorphous phases inherently restrict the size of the products, which are typically in the form of micron-sized foils or powders. While amorphous structures form an extreme, it is worth noting that a host of practically useful and progressively fine-grained and microcrystalline structures are obtainable over a range of moderately high cooling rates. In the recent past, there has been considerable progress in exploiting rapid solidification for product manufacture. The application of near-rapid solidification techniques, in combination with near-net shape casting, has given rise to cost effective manufacture. Figure 5.2 depicts the progressive reduction in thickness of casting which enables elimination of reheating in the case of thin slabs and of both reheating and hot rolling steps in the case of direct strip casting.” Direct strip casting comprises single-roll and twin-rolls processes, which form the basic techniques in the rapid solidification studies. It is interesting to note that the earliest attempt at direct strip casting using twin-rolls dates back to Henry Bessemer;* nearly two centuries later, the process has been commercialised because of renewed interest following the seminal work of Duwez*® on rapid solidification processing. In the area of thin strips, it is the non-ferrous industry that was the forerunner for developments, but these often graduated as new advances in continuous casting of steel. The second area where rapid solidification can be exploited commercially is in high concentration and multi-element master alloys, where the requirement is chemical homogeneity while the space and size of the product are immaterial. High concentration master alloys containing as high as 60 per cent Cr or Mn in Al in the form of rapidly cooled splats have been developed over the past few years. These master alloys give rise to cost effective manufacture of various aluminium alloys due to faster amanufacture, less material handling, storage and transport and rates, recovery high with on dissoluti tion, fast and uniform less overall energy consumption due to lower superheat and lower bath-holding times. Extending the concept of high

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K. Balasubramanian and P Rama Rao

concentration to multi-element systems, one could envision a master alloy containing all necessary solutes in a concentrated form of the alloy itself, thus requiring only dilution by aluminium to obtain the final alloy. As an example, one of the products developed® is a master alloy of Al-9%Cu—30%Mg-18%Si which, when diluted 30 times, yields the standard AA6463 alloy which is Al-0.2-0.3%Cu—0.5-0.9%Mg-0.2-0.6%Si.

SEMI-SOLID PROCESSING AND NeAR-NET SHAPE MANUFACTURE During the early 1970s, two important developments that occurred in the field of solidification processing technologies were rheo-casting* and spray forming (see Figure 5.3).°° The impetus for these developments arose from the need for process technologies for the manufacture of near-net shape products and for new materials such as composites. Materials TUNDISH

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a O

The Science and Art of Processing Materials Ml 177

technologies for making composites require solidification processing of a liquid phase containing insoluble solids, while near-net shape casting requires processing in the mushy state. The two technologies of rheo-casting and spray-casting developed in the 1970s, ushered in the processing of semisolids (Figure 5.3), which could produce near-net shape products in conventional alloy systems and also lent themselves to the manufacture of composites. The rheo-casting process was aimed at producing slurries by vigorous stirring of the solidifying melt which breaks up the dendrites. The slurry is cast if the fraction of the solid is low, and can be formed by conventional metal working processes if the solid content is high. Advances made through the incorporation of electromagnetic stirring have increased the capacities and throughput from rheo-casters.** Currently, research is underway to increase the solid loading beyond 40 per cent as well as to increase cooling conditions to produce finer primary particles. One such development is the SCR (shearing/cooling roll) process, wherein the molten alloy is solidified and simultaneously deformed between a rotational shearing/cooling roll and a fixed cooling block. While rheo-casting was primarily directed at semi-solids as slurries, spray-casting (Osprey™) is a novel process*! by which semi-solid droplets are produced, and, by an additive layering and consolidation process, a near-net shape product is manufactured. As it is an additive process (in contrast to subtractive processes such as machining), a number of shapes can be deposited by manipulating the spray nozzle as well as the substrate beneath the spray. Furthermore, deposition on large diameter drums or wheels allows continuous casting of thin strips. It is anticipated that many such combination technologies,” amenable to near-net shape as well as cost- and energy-efficient manufacture of products, will evolve in the future.

DEFORMATION PROCESSING OF MATERIALS The next important set of processes available toa materials engineer are in deformation processing. Here, not only is the shape

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imparted to the material that is worked upon, but significant changes also occur in the microstructure of the material. One of the important endeavours* in the physical metallurgy of steels, namely the development of microalloyed steels containing titanium, niobium and vanadium which are now being manufactured on an industrial scale, was based on the utilisation of the

microstructural changes (recrystallisation and precipitation) that occur during the hot deformation processing of the microalloyed austenitic phase. In order to effectively process the materials by deformation to achieve the desired material properties, basic data on material behaviour under various kinds of loading, and microstructure—property correlational studies, are necessary. Such data-bases have become available for a wide range of practical materials through decades of research. These empirical inputs, together with theories on material behaviour as well as computer simulation studies on deformation processes, provide the bedrock knowledge base for deformation processing of materials. In the earlier sections, a perspective on various materials processes has been considered in a pressure—temperature process space, with pressure considered as a variable pertaining to a gas phase. In order to understand the role of pressure in deformation processing, the nature and characteristics of a gas phase vis-a-vis a condensed phase are to be understood, and this

is attempted in the succeeding paragraphs.

Lower Pressure Gas PHASE AND CONDENSED PHASES Lower pressures were principally used in materials processing via the control and manipulation of a low pressure gas phase in conjunction with or without a condensed phase as outlined earlier. The pressure in a gas phase is hydrostatic in nature, and the work input of the system or output of the system is described by the changes in the pressure—volume conjugate variables of the gas phase. The interaction between atoms and gas molecules in a low pressure gas phase is ideal, but at higher pressures interaction increases which results in phase separation as described by the van der Waals equation of state. Unlike the gas phase, the interactions in the condensed phases are very

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strong. The gas phase is characterised by free expansion ifa pressure differential exists, while strong interatomic forces in condensed phases self-contain the system in terms of total volume. There is volume change in a gas phase corresponding to the changes in pressure achieved via application or withdrawal of load, whereas there is hardly any change in volume of the condensed phases due to application of load. Reduction in the lattice parameters of crystals to effect volume changes would require enormous compressive forces.

PRESSURE AND STRESS The application of load is transferred throughout the gas phase is trans(hydrostatic), whereas in a condensed phase the load applicaThe modes. shear and ssion compre ferred in tension, ‘stress’ a as system phase sed conden tion of load is seen by the oanisotr l ructura microst and ic tensor, and the crystallograph stress this of ents compon various of pies determine the magnitude (force) per tensor. Pressure and stress are both defined as load and its load the er wherev such as unit area and are determined dethus e pressur and stress While area of action are known. is e pressur that noted be to is it scribe the same phenomenon, the to related atively quantit be can hydrostatic in character and are many a time equivalent ‘hydrostatic stress’. Pressure changes the applica- © and phase gas a in determined by volume changes has to ution) distrib stress (or tion of an equation of state. Stress utive constit the and tensor), a be determined by ‘strain’ (also n. questio in l materia the of equation of state for deformation conthe in es variabl te conjuga Thus, stress and strain form the and volume in the densed state corresponding to the pressure in the Gibbs fashion similar a in gas phase, and are incorporated a condensed on e pressur of free energy description. If application the presphase, fluid) (or phase is through a surrounding gas The nature. in atic sure and stress are equivalent and hydrost is s system sed conden in material response to application of load es/ pressur higher of in terms of deformation, and application deformation processing stresses via mechanical forces enables of materials.

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PRESSURE—TEMPERATURE PROCESS SPACE AND DEFORMATION PROCESSING The deformation processing of materials is characterised by temperature and the amount and type of application ofload. The material response, principally strain, however, depends not only on the applied load and temperature but also on material characteristics, namely (a) the fundamental material properties as determined by the interatomic bonding in crystals and (6) microstructural characteristics of crystalline aggregates as determined by the microconstituent phases, their size and distribution and the defects that are present. Further, the material characteristics themselves undergo concurrent reversible as well as irreversible changes during deformation. Thus, the material characteristics and the material response are dynamic in nature and deformation processing is principally concerned with the irreversible changes in the material characteristics which give rise to the required property changes and the attendant irreversible strain response which determines the level of shaping or forming of the material that is achievable. In an earlier section we depicted various materials processes on a pressure—temperature process space map; it is seen (Figure 5.1) that a majority of the deformation proces ses occur at moderate to high loads. The capacity of presses (say acting ona 1 square metre area) is typically of the order of afew thousand tonnes, which translates to a pressure of about 100 bar to a kilobar (10 MPa to 100 MPa): An order of magnitude higher pressure is obtained if the same load is applied over a smaller area, say 1 square foot, or if the load capacity of the press is increased to tens of thousands of tons. A material deform s if the applied load is above the flow stress, which typically varies from as low as 10 MPa to a high as 2000 MPa. Higher temperatures induce changes in the material characteristics which reduce the inherent strength of materials. Furthermore, metal working at higher temperatures is aided by the thermally activated recovery and recrystallisation processes which reduce the flow stress required

for further working of the material. Thus, hot working, or cold working with intermittent annealing, is necessary for enabling deformation processing of materials.

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Deformation processing is carried out at all temperatures ranging from ambient to near melting point of the material, with corresponding decreases in the required processing loads at the higher temperatures. Typical temperatures that one encounters in a majority of hot deformation processes are near that at which the dynamic recrystallisation occurs, i.e., at 50— 60 per cent of the absolute temperature at the melting point (T_). However, processing at still higher temperature is possible, as seen in some cases of superplastic forming (upto 80— 90 per cent of T_) and in semi-solid processing wherein deformation is carried out in the solid-liquid mushy zone temperatures. The deformation loads in semi-solid processing are lower, and hence the cost-effective, near-net shape forming capability that is inherent in semi-solid processing is currently being pursued. As mentioned in the foregoing discussion, typical pressures for technological processing are currently of the order of 100 bar to a maximum of 3 to 5 kb. Still higher pressures are however obtained in the natural processes“ that occur deep underneath the earth. Natural diamonds crystallise from CO, saturated rock melts, rich in magnesium at pressures of over 50 kb and at temperatures above 1700 K, conditions that obtain at a depth of 200— 600 km in the mantle beneath the earth’s surface. Explosive CO, gas driven eruptions of frozen materials bring these diamond bearing rocks up through the cracks to the surface; these are popularly known as diamond pipes.* High pressures in the form of waves can be obtained from detonation of high energy materials such as explosives and from electrical discharges, which form the basis for the high energy rate working of materials. Pressures as high as 50-250 kb at the metal-explosive interface are generated when explosives are detonated in intimate contact with the metal. Typically pressures in the range of 50-70 kb are exploited in the

explosive forming of materials.“

ING STRAIN RATE—TEMPERATURE Process SPACE AND DEFORMATION PROCESS ling In practice, deformation processing is carried out by control al materi The ature. temper and load of the rate of application and load ature, temper by ined strain response, as determ

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material characteristics, is controlled in a predetermined manner so as to achieve either a steady state of working (constant strain rate) or processing in a given range of rate of strain (vari-

able strain rate). Accordingly, various deformation processes can also be considered“ in a strain rate-temperature map as illustrated in Figure 5.4. It is seen that materials processing is carried out over 14 orders of magnitude of strain rate and at all temperatures between the ambient and the melting point. The actual process window used depends on the material characteristics and its strain response to application of loading or straining at a given rate and temperature.

Figure 5.4 depicts the range from very low strain rate (10°), natural geological processes that occur over geological time scales, to that of very high rates (10°) obtained in high energy rate working processes such as explosive forming. However, the vast majority of processes* used in practice fall in a narrow window of 1.0 to 10°) in strain rate. The empirical data on the material characteristics, including response to loading, are obtained at these lower strain rates using tensile, compression and torsion tests. Higher and lower strain rate data are also determined and the mechanical behaviour data are compiled as a property index known as strain rate sensitivity and a strain hardening index n, m, which together constitute the two important material parameters that determine the constitutive equation of state describing the deformation behaviour of materials. For the sake of brevity, the majority of deformation processes that fall in the normal processing window are not considered in this chapter. Instead, attention is drawn to processing regimes that are far removed from the normal metal working window. Very low strain rate processes such as superplastic forming and very high strain rate processes as in high energy rate forming, which provide the two extremes (see Figure 5.4) in deformation processing techniques, are briefly outlined in the succeeding paragraphs.

DEFORMATION PROCESSING AT LOW STRAIN RATES AND SUPERPL ASTICITY Deformation processing at low strain rates (10~ and below) is possible on virtually all types of materials. Low strain rate processing

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+6

HYDRODYNAMIC/ EXPLOSIVE FORMING

EXPLOSION WELDING

DISPLACIVE TRANSFORMATIONS BALLISTIC PENETRATION 2p)zin

+

METAL WORKING

co)

(2)

3>

) = fe) z

TENSILE TEST HOT TORSION HOT COMPRESSION

SSTRAIN RATE SLIDING WEAR

SUPER PLASTIC FORMING; DIFFUSION BONDING

CREEP DEFORMATION

GEOLOGICAL PROCESSES

0.25

0.5 T/Tm

0.75

1.0

TEMPERATURE

Figure 5.4

Strain rate-temperature process space

n in materials that is utilised to obtain sufficient plastic deformatio very large plasate gener or show poor workability (e.g., ceramics) large strains of nment tic strains (e.g., ductile materials). Attai cteristics chara ial (>100 per cent) achieved through certain mater ng. formi ic and process conditions” constitutes superplast

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At the microscopic level, localised plastic deformation is characterised by intercrystalline and intracrystalline micro-mechanisms: (a) slip by dislocations or by twinning inside crystals (intracrystalline) and (b) grain boundary processes (inter- crystalline). With regard to grain boundary processes, crystals slide (grain boundary sliding) and rotate to accommodate strains, thereby giving rise to large plastic strains (superplasticity) before fracture. Such grain boundary processes are promoted if the material characteristics such as (a) fine equiaxed grain structure ( 0.5); (c) low grain growth tendencies (a competing grain boundary process); and (d) resistance to cavitation (another competing grain boundary process) are attained in the material. Together with these material characteristics, the process conditions of high temperatures (>0.6 T_) and very low rates of strain (10 to 10“) whicn aid grain boundary deformation processes are to be ensured for achieving superplasticity. High temperatures promote grain boundary migration causing grain growth (which reduces free energy due to reduction of interfacial energy) in materials. Double phase alloys such as titanium alloys and eutectic Zn—Al alloy are ideally suited to restrict grain growth in either phase as grain growth under such conditions requires long range diffusion. Second, cavitation at grain tri-junctions is the nucleus for the on-

set of failure, and therefore such cavitation tendencies should be

minimised for the promotion of superplasticity. The processing times involved are necessarily long and therefore low strain rate processing as in superplastic forming places an inherent limitation of low throughputs; thus processing in this regime is restricted by technoeconomics to very low volume and high value product manufacture. The principal advantage of superplastic forming (SPF) is the ability to handle complex shapes, and, when it is combined with diffusion bonding (DB), versatile and net shape product manufacture is possible. Thus, the SPF—DB combination is applied to produce complex ‘lowvolume high-value’ aerospace products® such as aerofoil slats based on two-phase titanium alloys. Air bottles made from superplastically formed Ti alloy hemispheres are diffusion bonded or electron-beam welded to obtain complete spheres.*! The load requirements in superplastic forming processes are applied via an inert gas inside a closed die cavity and the gas pressure is

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slowly increased. As the process is carried out at higher temperatures for long duration, energy consumption is generally higher. The number of sequential toolings to achieve a desired shape is less in superplastic forming; in many cases a one-shot process is sufficient to achieve near-net shape, which offsets higher processing costs in selected applications.”

HIGH STRAIN RATE SUPERPLASTIC PROCESSING In recent years, efforts** have been directed towards increasing the range of strain rates over which the advantages of superplastic behaviour of materials can be exploited to facilitate faster, cost-competitive manufacture of products. The superplastic strain rate increases with increasing temperature and decreasing grain size. Very fine grain sizes in the submicron range are obtained in the mechanical alloying process (mechanical attrition of powders), and mechanically alloyed materials show superplasticity at strain rates as high as 50 per seéond. The grain boundary sliding and diffusional relaxation by boundary diffusion occur very fast in nanometer scale grains in materials to give rise to high strain rate superplasticity. | Another class of materials that has received attention in the high strain rate superplastic regimes is metal matrix composites. In such composites containing 5-20 per cent particles (by volume), the ceramic particles serve as the second phase providing the phase boundary for restraining grain growth; and the ensuing strain size is less than the interparticle spacing. The distribution of grain sizes depends on the size and distribution of the ceramic phase, and a homogeneous distribution of particles in a narrow size range gives the best superplastic microstructure. In practice, particle size and interparticle spacing less than 3 microns are seen to promote high strain rate superplasticity which can typically occur in the range of 0.1—1 per second, the range where normal metal working operations are conducted. While it is preferable to reduce grain and particle sizes to attain superplasticity at as low a temperature as possible, incipient melting due to higher temperatures at grain boundaries, especially tri-junctions, has been found to promote high strain

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rate superplasticity. Large amounts of strain accommodation occur at tri-junctions, and liquid phase formation at such locations aids in obtaining very high elongations. However, temperatures higher than the optimum result in melting at high angle grain boundaries apart from tri-junctions, leading to the promotion of fracture processes. From the manufacturing point of view, setting the processing temperature window to melt only the tri-junctions is difficult and hence selective incipient melting is not yet amenable to commercial exploitation.

DEFORMATION PROCESSING AT HIGH STRAIN RATES While low strain processing is characterised by low loads and long processing times, high strain rate processing is marked by large pressures but for very short durations of time. Such short duration large pressures are generated as pressure/shock waves which travel through the material being processed at high velocities, thereby changing the material characteristics as well as deforming the material to required shapes. The generation of such a high pressure wave and harnessing it for forming of materials is a specialised area known as high energy-rate working of materials. Generation of a high pressure wave requires a very high energy source, such as chemicals (explosives and propellants), electrical discharges or fast acting pneumatic—mechanical presses. An inexpensive energy source is obtained through the detonation of an explosive. The large amount of energy that can be released from a small amount of explosive has made highenergy forming a versatile metal working process which encompasses forming, shaping, cladding, welding, cutting, engraving, hardening and compaction of powders. Explosive metal working™ is generally divided into two categories, namely (a) stand-off operation wherein the explosive charge is detonated at a distance from the work piece and the energy is transmitted as a pressure wave through a medium such as air or water (hydrodynamic forming); and (b) contact operation where the charge is positioned in intimate contact

with the material itself. Very large pressures (of the order of several hundred kilobars) are generated in contact operations which result in severe localised plastic flow at the interacting

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surface. This phenomenon of severe localised work-hardening is exploited to surface—harden austenitic manganese steel for large mining and material handling products that cannot be hardened using conventional methods because of size and shape of the product and the austenitic microstructure of the material. Joining and cladding of similar and dissimilar metal blocks before rolling, manufacture of large size multilayer composite parts in one operation, and bulk welding of heavy pieces which are impossible by normal techniques—all these are easily accomplished in contact explosive operations. Localised cutting and engraving using shaped charges and contact forming of parts over an open die using low-density charges are other examples of this technique. Ceramic materials which possess very high melting points and exhibit brittle nature can be compacted to high green densities using hydrodynamic explosive compaction methods. Compaction of metal matrix composites containing

fairly high volume percentage of ceramic particulates has been achieved using contact explosive operation.” While contact operations have beeri put to commercial use, it is the stand-off technique (which allows better control and offers other advantages) that has become the predominant method in explosive forming. The pressures can be varied/reduced by manipulation of the distance, shape, orientation and density of the charge and the transfer medium in stand-off operations, thus enabling greater versatility. Stand-off operations have been used®® to manufacture products ranging from thin (0.2 mm thickness) stainless steel dental plates to 1200 mm diameter domes and pressure vessel hemispherical ends. In general, explosive forming can be exploited in cases where the requirements are (a) fabrication of large parts made of very high strength materials which call for deformation forces beyond the capabilities of conventional equipment; (b) low volume production which in conventional manufacture would require large capital costs in multiple tooling and high capacity presses that are not economically viable; and (c) complex shape manufacture or simultaneous deformation of all parts in a complex shape which is impossible in conventional methods. The charge shape and geometry can be varied almost at will. Combined with the low cost of chemical explosives, the potential for use of this high energy—rate forming

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process for fabricating high strength or large-sized or complexshaped products is virtually unlimited. It is worth noting that changes in microstructure which do not normally occur at low strain rate processing appear in high energy rate forming when high intensity pressure pulses travel through the work piece.’ Profuse mechanical twinning, slip on unusual slip systems, phase transitions and high density of point defects occur due to shock-induced straining. Further, high surface hardness, increases in yield strength and lowering of ductility are typical results obtained when materials are shock loaded. High pressures affect the molar free energy of phases; the mutual stability of phases is significantly altered, which can result in the stabilisation of phases not observed at normal temperatures and pressures. A recent report® on the metallization of hydrogen by a research group at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, USA exemplifies the phase transition that can occur when hydrogen is subjected to shock pressures of the order of 1.4 mega-bars. This significant finding has profound consequences for understanding the structures and magnetic fields of giant planets such as Jupiter, which is predominantly made up of hydrogen. While low strain rate forming requires certain microstructural characteristics in the input materials and process conditions, high energy rate forming does not call for any prior microstructural design for the work piece. Large shapes are difficult to handle in low rate forming due to equipment, tooling and heating constraints, while explosive forming lends itself to press free manufacture. The advantage of large strains and superplasticity that is achieved at low strain rates is now extended to normal metal working rates with appropriate microstructural design in mechanically alloyed materials and in some metal matrix composites.

RAPID PROTOTYPING

AN EMERGING TOOL FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT In general, processing of materials was always considered as a transformation of a bulk material into a shaped product primarily

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by application and withdrawal of heat and work. Instead of taking the bulk material as a starting point, if the product is looked upon as composed of an ordered three-dimensional arrangement of cells (tesselation) or a sequence of layers, reconstruction of the product cell by cell or layer by layer becomes a feasible manufacturing method. Such a manufacturing concept dovetails with computer aided design principles based on tesselation and additive object building. Active research in such additive processing concepts of manufacturing over the last decade has now reached commercialisation potential for making prototypes of products.

ADDITIVE PROCESSING In order to arrive at the optimum process technological option, or to evaluate a product design concept or select a product winner from a host of competing design ideas, prototype manufacture is undertaken before embarking on costly engineering of large-scale product manufacture. In a majority of cases, the most time consuming and expensive aspect in the product development exercise is the making of a prototype of a design concept. Rapid prototyping, an emerging tool for product development, is aimed at crashing time on prototype design and evaluation. Rapid prototyping, also called solid free-form fabrication, is based on the additive processing technique mentioned above; this technique is well suited not only for prototype testing but also for small volume manufacture. In the very recent past, several additive processing techniques® have emerged for quick production of prototypes for verification of design ideas. These techniques are the result of cross-fertilisation of two concepts: (a) computer aided design (CAD) which allows an accurate analytical description of part cross-sections; and (0) layerby-layer building of objects (lamination). With the availability of CAD systems, parts or components with complex geometries are first designed as 3-D mathematical models which are then sectioned to obtain a sequential outline of part cross-sections. This conversion of CAD object 3-D profile into sequential sectional part profile is known as stereolithographic formatting of an object. Rapid

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fabrication machines take this format to deposit a suitable material as a layer in selected areas according to the section profile or to selectively etch or transform a layer of suitable medium. Layer after layer is then etched or deposited to build a free-form object.

LAYER DEPOSITION PROCESSES These processes are based on two techniques, fused deposition modelling and selective layer sintering. In the former, a thick filament (0.044 inch) of thermoplastic material (wax, nylon etc.) is heated to just above its melting point as it is precisely pumped through a nozzle that extrudes the material onto the preceding layer as per the required section profile. Each successive crosssection or layer of the part is thus built up to form the object. In the latter, a scanning CO, laser beam is used to fuse or sinter powdered material that has been deposited as a layer on a platform, in the stereolithographic format. After each cycle, the build platform lowers and a fresh layer of powder is evenly deposited by a roller. When completed, the part is shaken to remove loose powder. This process can produce metallic parts unlike others that form parts from thermoplastic, resin, paper and wax.

LAYER ETCHING/TRANSFORMING PROCESSES There are basically three techniques that use layer etching/transforming methods for additive building of a prototype. In stereolithography, an ultraviolet or infrared laser etches a photosensitive liquid resin and solidifies it. In this technique, the ultraviolet laser is focussed on the surface of a vat of liquid polymer and a layer is solidified as per the stereolithographic format. The first solidified layer on the build platform is lowered and the next fresh successive layer is etched. In the laminated object manufacturing process, the object is built from paper treated with a plastic coating on the side which is sensitive to an infrared laser beam which scans the section profile and cuts it into the paper. The next paper layer is bonded to the previous layer by a heated roller and the process is repeated. When completed,

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a wood-like part is obtained which can be sanded and varnished just like a wooden pattern. In the third technique of solid ground curing, a glass plate covered with the xerographic negative of the part cross-section is moved into position inside a photosensitive medium which gets cured at the plate cross-section. The uncured liquid is pumped and a layer of wax deposited to cover the unetched areas. Resin filling, scanning, curing and wax deposition are repeated layer by layer. When completed, the process produces a part or parts embedded in wax. The wax provides excellent surface finish as well as support for the part that is being layer manufactured. The wax is dissolved to retrieve the part or an assembly of parts.

APPLICATIONS OF ADDITIVE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES Apart from the obvious application of prototype making in thermosetting resins or polymers, wax and paper materials, these additive manufacturing processes have been exploited commercially to produce (a) patterns for investment castings; (b) toolings; and (c) metal/ceramic compacts. (a) Investment casting requires patterns for shell making and the conventional techniques use wax patterns. Expendable patterns made via the aforementioned additive manufacturing processes allow direct shell making capability, thereby eliminating die manufacture. Further, complex patterns with incorporation of many cores and parting lines, which are not easily made by traditional investment casting methods, are now possible thanks to the layer manufacturing concepts. (b) Rapid tooling manufacture is based on the selective layer sintering process. wherein metallic/ceramic powders are sintered layer by layer to produce a tooling which could be fabricated to varying degrees of porosity. The strong porous compacts are then filled with liquid metals to obtain metal—metal composite or metal—-ceramic composite toolings which are excellent for plastic injection molding applications. (c) While tooling is itself an example of a high value-added, one-shot product, extensive research is currently under way to extend these processing techniques to actual part manufacture in sufficient volume using metallic and ceramic materials in layer building.

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We have briefly outlined the processing of materials as seen in perspective over a range of temperatures and pressures. Apart from heat and work which allow manipulation of temperature and pressure, the rate of extraction of heat (cooling rate) and the rate of application of load (strain rate) are seen to be the principal variables that determine the manufacture of a multitude of material products. The advent of vacuum techniques, which enabled control of a low pressure gas phase in conjunction with a condensed phase, ushered in new processes that produce quality materials by exploiting the thermodynamic driving forces available at lower pressures apart from the possibilities of cleaner processing. Advances in solidification and deformation processing, which cover a major segment of manufacturing processes, are largely directed towards near-net shape manufacture. Unlike manufacture from bulk materials, product design, development and manufacture on a layer-by-layer basis are presently receiving considerable attention. Prototypes, patterns, toolings and low volume products are already being made using additive processing methods.

Notes AND REFERENCES 1. 2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

J.P. Deschamps and R.R. Nayak, 1995, Product Juggarnauts, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. M. Hammer and J. Champy, 1933, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. P. Rama Rao and K. Balasubramanian, 1995, Proceedings of the Conference on Perspectives in Materials Science, Bangalore, India 18-20 December, §. Ramaseshan and M.K. Tiwari (eds.), 1982, Materials Processing Space, Indian Academy of Sciences. P.R. Taylor and S.A. Pirzada, 1994, ‘Thermal Plasma Processing of Materials: A Review’, in Advanced Performance Materials, 1: 35-56. H.V. Atkinson and B.A. Rickinson (eds.), 1991, Hot Isostatic Processing, The Adam Hilger Series on New Manufacturing Processes and Materials,

Bristol, Philadelphia,

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J. Subramanyam and M.V. Vijayakumar, 1992, Journal of Materials Science, 27(23). V.K. Sikka, S.C. Deevi and J.D. Vought, 1995, Journal of Advanced Materials and Processes, 147:29-31. T.R. Bieler, R.S. Mishra and A.K. Mukherjee, als, pp. 52-57.

1996, Journal of Materi-

A. Roth, 1982, Vacuum Technology, Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co. Op.cit., note 10. Also see F. Weber, 1968, Dictionary of High Vacuum Science and Technology, New York: Elsevier Publishing Co. H. Bondi, 1996, Lecture at the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India. Op.Cit., note 10.

SociA. Choudhrey, 1990, Vacuum Metallurgy, Chapter 1, American ety of Metals International. DirecF. Weber, op.cit., note 11. Also see, P. Vijendran, 1992, Vacuum tory, Indian Vacuum Society. 1991, OxyA. Choudhrey, op.cit., note 14. Also K. Balasubramanian, us Materials gen Free Electronic Copper, Technical Report, Nonferro Technology Development Centre, Hyderabad, India. K. Balasubramanian, op.cit., note 16. A. Choudhrey, op.cit., note 14.

R. Balasubramanyam view, Technical

and S.V. Nagesh, 1993, Titanium—An

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tory.

Over-

Labora-

;

A. Roth, op.cit., note 10. and J.W. Rutter, 1953, See note 19. Also see W.A. Tiller, K.A. Jackson Chalmers, 1953, CaB. and Rutter J.W. Acta Metallurgica, 1: 428-37;

and J.D. Hunt, nadian Journal of Physics, 31: 15-20; M.H. Burden and R.F. Mullins W.W. 99-116; 22: Growth, Crystal 1974, Journal of Trivedi, R. 444-51; 35: , Physics Serkerka, 1964, Journal of Applied

22.

palan and J. S. Kirkaldy, 1970, Acta Metallurgica, 18: 287-99; D. Venugo . 893-906 1984, Acta Metallurgica, 32: ational Symposium on J.S. Kirkaldy and F. Weinberg, 1990, ‘Intern Samarasekera (eds.), I.V. and Lait J.E. in ing’, Solidification Process

Symposium on SolidifiProceedings of the F. Weinberg International Ontario: Pergamon cation Processing, 20: 27-43, Hamiliton,

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24.

25.

L. Kaufman and H. Bernstein (eds.), Phase Diagrams, New York: Academic of Phase Diagrams, L. Kaufman (ed.), and J.A. Whitman, 1974, ‘A Look at the

Press.

1970, Computer Calculation of Press; Journal of Calculation Pergamon Press; C.M. Sellers Metallurgy of the Hot Rolling of

logy, 6: 441-47; C.M. Sellers, Steel’, Metallurgist & Materials Techno 1979, in Metal Science, 13: 187-94. mental Steps in Thermomechanical

1987, ‘Some Funda

L. Ttamura, the Iron and Steel Institute of Processing of Steels’, Transactions of e. Lectur Medal yama Nishi , 763-79 Japan, pp. Alloys and Grain Refiners’, TechS. Nanda, 1994a, ‘Aluminium Master Technology Development Centre, nical Report, Nonferrous Materials Hyderabad, India.

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ai.

28. PAS),

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M.C. Flemmings and S.B. Brown, 1988, in H.Y. Sohn and E.S. Geskin (eds.), Metallurgical Processes for the Year 2000 and Beyond, Proceedings of the International Symposium, The Metals and Minerals Society, pp. 9-15; and M.C. Flemmings and S.B. Brown, 1992, ‘Processing of Semi Solid Alloys and Composites’, in S.B. Brown and M.C. Flemmings (eds.), Proc. Second International Conference, The Metals and Minerals Society, Warrendale, PA, USA. N. Das, 1995, ‘Development of Ni Based Single Crystal Super Alloys for Gas Turbine Applications’, Technical Report, Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory. S. Nanda, op.cit., note 25. S. Nanda, op.cit., note 25. Also see R. Gopalan,

1994, Microstructural

Optimization and Characterization of Melt Grown High Tc Yba2Cu307-x Superconductor, Ph.D. thesis, Indian Institute of Tech30. 31.

nology, Madras. Op.cit., see note 26. H. Soda, G. Motoyasu, A. McLean

and A. Ohno, 1993, Cast Metals, 6:

76-86.

32.

33.

M.C. Flemmings and F. Weinberg, 1990, in J.E. Lit and I.V. Samarasekera (eds.), Proceedings of the F. Weinberg International Symposium on Solidification Processing, 20: 173-94, The Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Ontario: Pergamon Press. P. Duwez, 1967, Transactions American Society of Metals, 60: 607-33; R.D. Pehlke, 1988, in H.Y. Sohn and E.S. Geskin (eds.), Metallurgical

Processes for the Year 2000 and Beyond, The Metals and Minerals Society, pp. 115-27, Proceedings of the International Symposium; and, K.L.

Schwaha,

H. Holl, H.W.

Wing]

and

T. Langthaler,

1988,

in

H.Y. Sohn and E.S. Geskin (eds.), Metallurgical Processes for the Year 2000 and Beyond, Proceedings of the International Symposium, The Metals and Minerals Society, p. 140. P. Julliard, 1993, Journal of Cast Metals, 6: 87.

Op. cit., see note 32. H. Bessemer, British Patent 11 3317, 1846 and US Patent 49 035, 1865

Op. cit., see note 25. Also see, S. Nanda, 1994b, ‘High Concentration and Multi-Element Aluminium Master Alloys’, Technical Report, Nonferrous Materials Technology Development Centre, Hyderabad, India. M.C. Flemmings, R. Mehrabian and D.B. Spencer, US Patent 153819, 1971. Sellers, Whitman, op. cit., see note 23. P.R. Sahm, 1988, Solidification Processing, Proceedings of the 3rd

International Conference, Metals, London.

Sheffield,

September

Op. cit. (see notes 9 and 38); see also, A.N.

43.

1987, Institute

Strahler,

of

1984, Physical

Geology, New York: Wiley. S. Ashok, 1991, ‘Solidification of Cu-4%Zr Alloy during Spray Casting’, in Proceedings of Materials Congress, Advanced Materials Symposium, Cincinatti. tai Op. cit., see note 23.

The Science and Art of Processing Materials Ml 195

Op. cit., see note 40. Op. cit., see note 41. Op. cit., see note 9. 1993, Journal of the Geological Society of India, 42: 477. Op. cit., see note 47. S.P. Agrawal, (ed.), 1985, Superplastic Forming, American Society of Metals Publication, Metals Park, Ohio; P. Rama Rao, 1995, Journal of

Indian Institute of Science, 305-20. K.A. Padmanabhan and G.J. Davies, 1980, Superplasticity, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Verlag.

Op. cit., see note 50. K. Bose, A. Dutta and N.C. Birla, 1986, ‘Superplastic Forming/Diffusion Bonding: Some Fundamentals and Applied Aspects’, Technical

53.

Report, Defence Metallurgical Research

Labora-

tory; and A. Dutta and N.C. Birla, 1986, Defence Science Journal, 36: 179-90. Op. cit., see notes 49 and 51. ; H.C. Heikkenen and T.R. Mecnelley (eds.), 1988, Superplasticity in Aerospace, The Metals and Minerals Society Publication, Warrendale,

PA. 54.

Op. cit., see note 9; also see J. Pearson, 1964, ‘Development and Present

Status of Explosive Metal Working’, in High Energy Rate Working of Metals, NATO

55.

56. 57.

58.

trial A.A. High tute,

Advanced

Study Institute, Central Institute of Indus-

Research, Oslo, Norway, pp. 15-37. Ezra, 1964, ‘Principles and Practices of Explosive Forming’, in Energy Rate Working of Metals, NATO Advanced Study InstiCentral Institute of Industrial Research. Oslo, Norway, pp. 15-37.

Pearson, 1964, op.cit., see note 54. K. Sivakumar, N. Ramakrishnan, Y.R. Mahajan and V.V. Bhanuprasad, 1990, ‘Metal Matrix Composites through Explosive Compaction’, DMRL Technical Report, Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, India.

G.S. Ansell, D.J. Fisher, P. Haasen, J. Weertman and F.H. Wohibier, (eds.), 1986, Key Engineering Materials Focus: Mechanical Behaviour

of Metals at Extremely High Strain Rates, vol. 9, Switzerland, 59.

60.

Germany, UK, USA: Transactions Technical Publications. S.T. Weir, A.C. Mitchell and W. J. Nellis, 1996, ‘Metallization of Fluid

Molecular Hydrogen at 140 Gpa (1.4 mbar)’, Physical Review Letters, 76(11). Op. cit., see note 59.

Library and Information Services

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VI Energy and Economics in a Consumer Society Sik HUGH Forb

When John Smeaton introduced the term ‘civil engineering’ it was not in the current context of those branches of the profession that are now covered by the Institution of Civil Engineers, but to all engineering that was not ‘military’. Indeed, much of what Smeaton carried out would now be recognised as mechanical engineering. He was the first to devote attention to the principles and science behind the generation of power in the 1760s. When his first engine did not meet his expectations, he studied the information available from a hundred other engines and realised how inefficient they were. Having compiled a table of proportions of component parts, he designed and supervised the construction of an engine for Long Benton Colliery. He nearly doubled the useful work compared with existing engines, not only by the background knowledge he had gained from his ‘research’, but by better machining and attention to detail. In this activity, Smeaton recognised one of the critical asr pects underlying the contribution of the mechanical enginee To both to industry and to the betterment of the human lot. and understand the technology of what is needed, to measure detail manufacture to a quality standard and to give attention to ring. enginee in nce is fundamental to excelle the Today, we think that the ideas of quality assurance and . pments develo recent are onship customer—contractor relati George . ibility respons their of part as These early engineers saw it invited Stephenson made a remarkable statement when he was despite ; railway ed project a to t to give his approval and suppor

198 MM Sir Hugh Ford

the offer of a large fee he said that unless the project served the public interest, was technically sound and would produce a reasonable return for those who invested in it, he would have nothing to do with it. ‘Fitness for purpose’, in its widest connotation, must be the basis of all engineering, but especially in the wide realm of mechanical engineering. There is little question that the work of these early engineers of the industrial revolution created what is now recognised as industry. When man’s ability to create artefacts depended upon the energy and power of his own body and that of domesticated animals, the possibility of changing his environment and the hard and constant struggle for survival was extremely limited. Later, when the early forbears of the ‘the engineer’ contrived to use the force of the winds and the flowing water in streams and rivers, the amount of energy at his disposal significantly increased. At the time when John Smeaton undertook his studies, he found that a man turning a crank produced 0.04 to 0.078 hp whereas an 18 feet overshot water wheel could develop

2 to 5 hp. A post windmill was capable of 3 to 8 hp and a turret windmill was able to produce 6 to 14 hp. Yet all these mechanical devices were dependent upon the water flow or the favourable wind. Despite these advances, life was still largely dependent upon a minimum of energy usage. Savery was the first to record the idea of connecting the energy intrinsic in fuels with the ability to drive machinery. In his patent of 1698, he claimed an engine to use ‘the impellent force of fire ... for the working of all sorts of Mills where they have not the benefit of Water nor Consistent Windes’. At a time when all other engineers were developing atmospheric engines, Savery experimented with positive pressures, and complained that he was restricted by the pressure that boilers, piping and displacers could stand. It is said that he used pressures as high as 8 to 10 atmospheres. However, he did take the important step of realising that atmospheric engines could be used to raise water to drive wheels and thence to extract energy from fuel to produce mechanical work. It was the genius of Trevethick that turned the vacuum beam engines and pumps into the steam engines that became the great

Energy and Economics in a Consumer Society ll 199

motive power of the 19th century by employing significantly higher atmospheric pressures, thus using positive pressures in smaller cylinders. Simultaneously, the other great advantage of higher pressure was realised—the compactness of power units, which with successful employment by George Stephenson led to the development of modern transport. The purpose of this historical introduction is to emphasise the almost accidental way in which the industrial world came into existence, once the connection between the energy in fuels —and in this context overwhelmingly fossil fuels—and mechanical work and power was fully realised. With tremendous development in materials science and engineering the restrictions imposed upon the use of high pressures and temperatures for cheap and efficient energy production were soon overcome. This opened up an unprecedented horizon where the quality of life could take a high jump as many of the previous tasks of labour and effort could be achieved at the press of a button. While the quality of life improved the quantity of energy used by man for this improvement also increased manifold. The quality of life and the quantity of energy went hand in hand on an accelerating spiral. This is fine as long as the reservoir of energy is inexhaustible. This unfortunately is not the case. In his unending quest for an easier and better life man went on a spree in using up the reserve and it is only after 150 years of such use that we suddenly realise that the reservoir is finite and is going to run out in not too distant a future. This has vast implications for the very quality of life in search of which we have used up the energy resources. The challenge facing an engineer today is as great as the one he faced 150 years ago when he was called upon to improve the quality of life. Now he is challenged to look at ways of averting the impending disaster and still ensuring a reasonable quality of life. In this chapter we examine, in detail, some of the areas where an engineer, especially a mechanical engineer, needs to devote some attention in facing upto this challenge. Everything that is manufactured is the result of the application of energy in one form or another. A simple object, such asa glass bottle, a connecting rod of an automobile or a common brick, represents a calculable amount of energy. This includes

200 @

Sir Hugh Ford

the energy to extract the raw minerals from the earth (or to cut down and season a tree), the energy to move it to the point where it is to be operated upon, the energy to convert, beneficiate, purify, refine and alloy it, the energy to form it into its primary usable state, the energy to turn it into a manufactured part, to store it, pack it (including the energy represented by the packaging materials), to transport it to the point of sale and any further energy required to the point of usage. Eventuaily, the object will be discarded for one reason or another as being unfit for purpose and at disposal will also involve the outlay of yet more energy. Unless there is, then, a conscious effort at recycling, the energy represented by the component is lost, being distributed too thinly over the earth’s surface to be further recoverable. Industrial manufacture, interpreted in the widest terms, consumes the largest part of the energy used in the consumer society of today. The overall efficiency of most processes is low. Before computer-controlled machine tools became the norm, only around 6 to 9 per cent of the energy in the original fuel was involved in the cutting process. The corresponding figure for computer-aided machine tools has not, it appears, been assessed. Since cutting speeds and feeds are likely to be higher (being set by the system rather than the operator) and idling time reduced, the efficiency could be expected to be correspondingly higher. On the other hand, the added energy requirement of the more complicated electrics, involving systems, safety devices and so on, will counteract the performance to some extent. Yet, a further consideration must affect our thinking as mechanical engineers. The aforementioned efficiency only takes into account the energy of the actual cutting process itself, although substantial energy has already been spent on the construction of the machine tool as well as on the raw material fed into the machine from which the finished product emerged. The swarf—and many machining processes discard upto 70 or 80 per cent of the original bar or forging in swarf etc.—has intrinsic energy in it which is dissipated and cannot be recovered. The cutting fluids and lubricants are also energy-intensive. Thus, the overall energy efficiency is even lower than what these figures suggest.

Energy and Economics in a Consumer Society Mf 201

Even with better control of power station base-load working, efficiencies still fall short of the highest figures the best stations are capable of, so the manufacturing industries, whether in small batchs or in mass production, pay for a predominance of energy that is not usefully used, either by their own internal systems or by the power generating and distributing networks. To emphasise this aspect of the position we have reached in the service provided to the world by the mechanical engineer, the relevant information is presented in Table 6.1. (I am indebted to British Railways Board for the data.) Table 6.1

Comparison of Efficiencies of Various Motive Power Drives on Modern Railways

Locomotives

Outside BR Control Oil Refining

Coal Mining Handling and Storage Non-nuclear Generation

HST

Diesel

ACE

DE

ACEMU

92.6 99.6

92.6 99.6

98.0 -

92.6 99.6

98.0 -

HV Transmission 132/25KV Transformer

Outside BR Efficiency Within BR Control Transmission

Engine and Cooler Group Idling and Leakage Transformer Rectifier Auxiliaries Alternator Rect/Generator Traction Motor and Gear BR Controlled Efficiency

Overall Efficiency HST

34.1

34.1

98.0 99.0

98.0 99.0

92.9

92.2

S21

92.2

arell

-

-

98.0

-

98.0

37.5 95.0 94.5

37.0 95.0 95.0

: 97.0 99.0 98.0

37.0 95.0 97.0

98.5 99.0 99.0

95.0

96.0/92.5

-

96.0/92.5

-

92.0

88.0

93.0

90.0

90.0

29.4. 27.1

28.2/27.1 26.0/25.1

= High Speed Train (125 mph); DE

ACEMU

Multiple Units

= AC Electric Multiple Unit

85.8 | 29.5/28.4 27.8 | 27.3/26.3

85.1 27.6

= Diesel Electric Multiple Unit:

202 @

Sir Hugh Ford

The figures in Table 6.1 however do not tell the whole story: they ignore the energy involved in replacement of worn or damaged parts, repair and maintenance of the various locomotives, the energy in their original construction, the proportion (however small) of similar energy values for power stations or refineries that provided the power source, and the wear and tear of the track, control and signalling systems and so on. While these _losses may be small (usually 1-3 per cent in most systems), when ‘amortised’ over the life of the vehicle (20—25 years) it will be seen from the table that the artefacts of everyday life—such asa railway—are made up of a large number of small losses which, multiplied together, have very significant effects on the overall picture of our engineering performance. Every gain at one point is a potential loss at another. Let us examine the figures in Table 6.1 in a little more detail. The high speed train (HST), designed to run at 125 mph, was an advance not only in speed of travel but also in passenger comfort and convenience. It called for strengthening and improvement in the track contours (even 70 metre undulations become significant to the traveller at this and higher speeds) and much development of power units and transmissions. In diesel-driven locomotives of this type dedicated to high speed passenger service, most of the efficiency is within the designs of the locomotive itself, with an overall efficiency of 27.1 per cent. Yet, other diesel locomotives, used on a much wider range of duties, only fall short by 1 to 2 per cent. Again, the latest AC electric locomotives, capable of up to 150 mph, are efficient in themselves, but only improve on the 125 HST by less than 1 per cent and are probably more ‘expensive’ in the energy of construction of the loco and certainly the vast amount of energy intrinsic in the gantreys and overhead cables and feeder lines. The light multiple units, used on provincial and local services, whether diesel or AC driven, come out well in comparison, being light and limited to lower speeds. The advantages of electric traction are not those of efficiency of energy usage. This same recital could be made for almost every development made in engineering; each perceived advance has been dogged by a concomitant unrecognised recession, a pilgrim’s journey to the shrine where three steps forward are not always restricted to two steps back.

Energy and Economics in a Consumer Society Ml 203

Mechanical engineering is not alone in this profligate wastage of energy. While civil engineering creates bridges, dams, roads and buildings with long (120 years) life, electrical engineering, particularly in light electric and electronic products, is responsible for products with even shorter useful lives than mechanical engineering products that are yet also very energyintensive. Let me give another example of the trend in the application of mechanical engineering to the perceived service of mankind, from my own experience. When I was a child, 70 years ago, my family lived in remote country villages. Water (now an energyrich material in the western world) for all purposes came from wells, often shared between two or more houses, sometimes open topped, with a bucket and winch, but increasingly with a simple hand pump. When you have to carry two pails of water from the pump to your home, you become careful and sparing in the use of water and have a respect for it. The energy utilisation in providing the service was that of the human arm on the pump or winch handle—the soil, sand and rocks through which the water seeped did the purification and transmission to the point of usage. Today, in the UK, such supplies are unacceptable. Because it comes out of a tap, there is no recognition that water is a precious, energy-rich commodity. Take into account the energy required to pump raw water to the point of purification; the energy used in the purification, both mechanical and chemical; the further pumping through the distribution systems to the point of usage; and the energy expended in maintaining, repairing, improving and operating the system: the energy content of the water we use so thoughtlessly is clearly considerable. In most large water distribution systems, the losses through leakages and breakages is as much as 25 per cent of the water leaving the water purification plant. Of the rest, only about 35 per cent is used for such necessaries as cooking, cleaning and drinking—the rest goes in WC flushing, washing machines, baths and showers. Water consumption in Britain has increased in the last 30 years from 10 billion litres per day in 1960, to about 17 billion litres in 1990, and the demand is still rising, and this is not accounted for in toto by the increasing population. Since energy

204 @

Sir Hugh Ford

to pump water over long distances is available, and because energy can provide the vast quantities of materials of containment (the pipes, pumps, reservoirs and purification systems), we take it for granted that the energy should be used. And this ignores the whole serious prospect of the damage to our environment and the falling water table. To sum up, so far all engineering endeavour from the dawn of civilisation has depended upon the principle of utilising energy to improve living conditions and to advance our ideas of convenience to human society. In the last 100 years, we have been using up the sources of energy laid down by the sun over millions of years at a terrifying and catastrophic rate. The time scale for the exhaustion of liquid and gaseous fuels can be measured in decades. When our successors in even 50 years look back, they will see the second half of the 20th century as the period of the profligate wastage of energy. In their much straitened circumstances they will condemn our thoughtless and selfish attitude to the needs of future generations.

All materials—solid, liquid, gaseous—pass from a high level of potential, as concentrated minerals in the earth, to a low level of potential when they are used for any human purpose. In

this is recognised the essential unity of materials and energy in that they pass from a high level to being distributed so thinly over the earth’s crust so as to be unusable, just as energy is dissipated in their fabrication and use—an entropic process of decay that is irreversible. There are two ingredients in every artefact we create: the ingenuity of the engineer to design it and the energy needed to produce and use it.'Money, other than as a useful means of exchange and transfer, has no reality in this scenario. It is not related directly to the ability to create wealth, but is only a reflection of it.

THE TOTAL ENERGY LIFE CYCLE Energy is a universal measure of every artefact we produce. This energy is made up of two principal ingredients: the energy

Energy and Economics in a Consumer Society Ml 205

required to devise and make it, and the energy consumed during its useful life. In the consumer society of today, the first of these ingredients becomes increasingly important as we discard things

either because of fashion (or the inducement of advertisers!); or a

perceived improvement leads to ever shorter useful lives. It is the ‘total energy life cycle’ that should be the basis of decisions taken about the way we shape our future and the way we devise, make and use the products of manufacturing and service industries. This history of the civilisation we have developed over the last 80 years has been one of the unlimited availability of energy. Asa condition for the viability and continuity of this scenario, nature’s store of energy is assumed inexhaustible. Further, so long as the only criterion of prosperity is an economic/financial one, the ‘power at each individual elbow’ will need to go on increasing. Yet we all know that nature’s store of energy was laid down over millions of years and is not inexhaustible. As a rough guide, the present oil reserves will last about 50 years, gas reserves perhaps 75 years, while even the more ubiquitous coal will be exhausted in 250 years at the present rate of usage and assuming the present rate of population growth. In addition, it so happens that those areas where the rate of population growth is currently very high are also precisely the areas where there is a demand for higher ‘energy per head of population per year’ (over current levels); this is a significant factor in determining how long the non-renewable sources of energy can last. Can renewable energy sources fill the gap? There have lately been genuine efforts to increase renewable sources of energy. New forms such as photovoltaic systems, solar heating, biomass and sewage gas, wave energy, tidal systems and small hydropower units have been investigated. There are many parts of the world where the sun’s rays provide a practical solution to the direct generation of electricity and where solar heating and cooling are attractive. Indeed, photovoltaic systems are finding ready market in less ‘sunlight favoured’ places such as Europe. Yet, has anybody assessed the total energy life cycles for these equipment? The largest units so far manufactured are producing kilowatts rather than megawatts—where most consumer societies require gigawatts for their continuance. It has to be asked how far the classical forms of power—

206 M@ Sir Hugh Ford

hydraulic and wind—can make any significant contribution except in special circumstances where there are many lofty mountains and heavy rainfall or steady winds in remote places. There clearly are special cases where modern windmills can supply energy to local communities since transmission costs from a major power station grid would be considered ‘uneconomic’. However, the extent to which wind farms could meet

the future needs of industrial nations or be environmentally acceptable in the extent needed to meet the energy demand is open to serious question. _Where there are large estuaries, there can be a viable case

(both in energy and financial terms) for use of tidal power. The energy in the tides is certainly in the megawattage of a sizeable fossil fuel power station, and the total energy life cycle is favourable. Can it be said that the total energy life cycle of the more recent forms of renewable sources are equally viable? Unfortunately, reliable figures are not available to allow the assessments to be made, but it is unlikely that they are favourable. As it is, a fossil-fuelled or a nuclear power station has to operate for several years before it reaches the break even point in producing positive power. Also, the total useful lives of renewable energy schemes are not likely to be longer than those of larger power generation plants to justify the energy involved in their construction and operation. Biomass also has its advocates, but can it develop quickly enough to prevent the destruction of the rain forests and scrublands by the demand of the increasing populations of the so-called underdeveloped world? And could it ever satisfy the demand? If it did, would it be environmentally acceptable? Unless there is a dramatic halt to population growth, unless there is an immediate reversal of the consumer society way of life, I conclude that renewable sources of energy will never supply more than a small fraction of the total demand for energy.

ENERGY REQUIREMENTS OF INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES Lately, energy has been plentiful and cheap and very few industrial processes and products have been evaluated in ener gy terms.

Energy and Economics in a Consumer Society il 207

The Handbook of Industrial Energy Analysis by J. Boustead and G.F. Hancock was a landmark both in emphasising the prime importance of analysing what we do in energy terms and in providing a wealth of detail of the energy requirements of a wide range of processes and products. To quote a few examples: output energy for a cold rolled steel strip from the ore, plus services and transport, plus capital energy, is approximately 58 MJ/kg; for a stainless steel strip the figure is 115 MJ/kg, compared with an aluminium strip at 290 MJ/kg. On the other hand, the output energy for the common fuel oils is around 43 to 46 MJ/kg with a production energy approaching 39 MJ/kg indicating a fuel energy efficiency of 83-84 per cent. On the same basis, coal for normal industrial use is quoted at 27 to 29 MJ/kg but is exploited with an efficiency of production (of about 95 per cent) higher than that of oil. If one therefore sums up the energy content either from the product side or the fuel side one notices the colossal size of energy usage throughout the world. Many alloys have only a very short useful life—particularly aluminium and very mild steel which returns to the earth as rust and other corrosion products, or is merely thrown away as waste. This energy life cycle is marked even more sharply by the production of low density polyethylene. This low density polymer was developed over 50 years ago by the high pressure route, requiring the immense engineering achievement of generating continuously, pressures of 2000 bars with a difficult gas, namely ethylene, which above about 200 bars no longer obeys, even remotely, the laws of a perfect gas. The conversion of ethylene gas into a solid material takes place at a realistic rate at pressures from 1700 bars upwards and at 250°C and above, in the presence of a catalyst. It is an exothermic reaction and a lot of heat has to be dissipated to ensure that the conversion does not run away—ending in an explosive decomposition to hydrogen and carbon. The heat of reaction that has to be lost in the process is achieved by operating, auto-thermically, the conversion per pass through the reactor being in the region of 15 per cent to allow the heat to be taken up in the cool incoming ethylene. After leaving the reactor, the mixture of solid polymer and unconverted gas is cooled and separated, before the unconverted gas can be re-compressed with new make-up gas for return to the reactor.

208 Ml Sir Hugh Ford

The total energy involved in this cycle is considerable. The ethylene is manufactured by cracking naptha from crude oil, an energy-dependent process; and the polymerisation itself is very expensive on energy. Low density polyethylene in bulk form, including the ethylene produced from crude oil, is 111.5 MJ/kg for the main process only, that is, not including transport energy, capital energy (i.e., energy for manufacture and maintenance of the plant) or services. These factors are likely to be high in the case of polyethylene. So all this energy, both the energy of manufacture and the intrinsic energy, is lost when we throw away our wrappings and packaging materials. Packaging represents by far the greatest use of the material today, and the output of LD polyethylene is measured in millions of tons per year. Since the shelf life of most of it is very short, the total energy life cycle is disastrous. The same alarming story can be traced in every other material that mankind has developed, used and discarded: ceramics, fibres, paper and wood products, light alloys, precious metals and rare earths, as well as the whole gamut of common metals and polymers. Where, not all that long ago, we were frugal in the use of materials, we have now become prodigal and have developed an economic system which can only be sustained on the basis of increased consumption of products of all kinds with a decreasingly useful life.

THE ECONOMICS OF A CONSUMER SOCIETY The financial edifice on which the industrial world is based is directly dependent upon a consumer society. Money is anumber on a piece of paper until the engineer has created some useful artefact or service of lasting value that represents a contribution to wealth. The notion of basing wealth upon a banking system represented by numbers on a promissory note had some cogency when frugal societies conserved the products of everyday life, repaired them, maintained them or reutilised the materia ls of their composition by renovation or conversion into somethi ng else. It has been necessary to change to a prodigal attitude , to

Energy and Economics in a Consumer Society ll 209

absorb and discard products sufficiently quickly to keep the system going—the necessity to change things rapidly, to have a short usable life before being thrown away. The effect of our activities, from antiquity to the present, has been to distribute concentrated minerals of all kinds to a state of dilution where they are no longer practically recoverable. The process is irreversible except by a prodigious and unacceptable usage of energy where again we are merely transferring the irreversibility from one raw material to another. Most artefacts— refrigerators, dishwashers, computers, televisions, automobiles, furniture, bottles, containers, packaging materials etc.—are made for a limited time period and are now, almost without exception, incapable of repair and are therefore irrecoverable. It is astonishing that when a compressor or similar component in a refrigerator breaks down it is cheaper (in financial terms), after a relatively short life, to buy a new refrigerator—the former is thrown away although it is otherwise entirely fit for its purpose. In many instances, equipment is made in such a way that it is incapable of being dismantled or so that spare parts, by design and intention, are not capable of being fitted: a cordless telephone, after two or three years, fails and cannot be repaired because of a sealed-in construction: an answer phone, again with an expected life of three years (even with a considerable servicing charge), is expected to be obsolete at the end of that time; a copier, which is otherwise fit for its purpose, is pronounced obsolete and its spare parts discontinued so that is has to be thrown away. These are but a few examples of the fallacy of basing decisions on economic assessment alone where, judged on fitness for purpose, any of these, designed and made for an appropriate life, or on an optimised total energy life cycle, would be capable of performing with entire satisfaction for a great many years. It has also to be realised that, in addition to the waste of energy, the raw materials are not inexhaustible. Although there are plentiful deposits of iron and aluminium, the classical metals like tin, copper, lead and zinc are becoming increasingly rare in deposits that are extractable by conventional means—without the expenditure of unacceptable amounts of energy. Many copper sources are reduced to as little as % per cent of the excavated material, and while solvent extraction could probably help

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in reducing the energy required in beneficiation there will inevitably be a time when these deposits have to be abandoned. Chromium, nickel, cobalt, and similar valuable alloying elements are already restricted to relatively few recognised sources. Energy is at the heart of our capability to make raw material of all kinds available for the consumer society. So long as the only basis of decision-taking is a financial/economic one, the present unstable system will continue without a thought for tomorrow. One further example illustrates in a dramatic way the unreality of market forces as a prime factor. A small local contractor, whose business was repairing computer equipment, had cause to repair a printer and needed a small part. He applied to the manufacturer and was told that they would not provide the part, only a complete assembly at £170 (1992 prices). On the repairer discovering that the particular assembly was made by a subcontractor he was again only offered a complete unit, this time for £63. Knowing a fellow contractor who serviced the equipment he appealed to him for the spare part—and got it for 83 pence. (I am grateful to Mr Blyn Robbins for this example.) This is not meant as a comment on any company’s marketing strategies, but as an instance of how, given unlimited energy and materials, civilisation has moved away from the reality of an exhaustible resource, merely because a financial advantage takes it in that direction.

THE CRITICAL ROLE OF THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER The engineer has not been the decision-maker during the 20th century. He has been the servant of the world community which has been increasingly influenced and controlled by financial and political forces. Yet it will be the engineer—and the mechanical engineer in particular—who will be condemned by future generations since what he has devised and manufactured has been the principal result of the move to the consumer society of today. There is no short-term solution and no easy way out of the predicament in which we find ourselves. A violent rethink

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of the means we use to assess the viability of what we do is urgently needed, and the engineering fraternity cannot shrug off its responsibility for taking a major initiative to bring this about. All our action and our demands depend upon the use and abuse of materials (and this means energy), and we cannot proceed indefinitely on this basis if we have any thought for the future generations. We cannot assume or hope that the energy required for the production of materials and artefacts in everincreasing quantities and sophistication is going to be available. The engineer must be in the forefront of the revolution in thought and action on this vital matter of international conse-

quence.

CONCLUSION In comparatively recent times, we have allowed the financial and economic accountability of decision-taking to lead us astray on a course of destruction of natural resources. Finance should be the enabling arm of decision-taking, which should be based not on the artificial and largely irrelevant basis of a number on a piece of paper, but on an energy profit and loss account and a balance sheet made up of the total energy content over the entire life of each artefact or service we produce. The only fundamental quantity involved in anything we make and use is the total energy contained in its make up and its use during its whole life cycle. Thus, it is the total Energy Life Cycle that should be the principal criterion in deciding how we develop the future. So much of what is marketed today as a perceived need is nothing more than minor change, often for its own sake, but so presented as to encourage the public to discard its existing equipment and buy the new equipment, with an unacceptable loss of irreplaceable energy. On an energy life cycle basis, a redesign of artefacts to allow the incorporation of improvements would undoubtedly be much more advantageous for the world and for the future.

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Today’s whole crazy edifice depends, not upon increasing our material wealth but in destroying it after a relatively short life in favour of scmething new, in order to keep the edifice from tumbling. A whole new vista of engineering skill, knowledge and ingenuity opens up with this fundamental change in the world’s thinking about what is worth doing. We urgently need a new definition of the word ‘wealth’. The only international currency is energy. Its effective use in the interest of the world at large and especially of future generations is surely a moral as well as a practical question. The engineer can no longer stand aside and protest that it is not his concern.

VII R&D in Industry ASHOK S. GANGULY

INTRODUCTION

I have been asked on several occasions whether companies spend enough on research and development (R&D). It is a very difficult question to respond to objectively. However, in my career I have never encountered an instance when a good, business-related R&D issue has remained unattended because of lack of funds. The real challenge, on the other hand, is to assess whether all the expenditure in R&D is well spent; and here my response tends to be somewhat equivocal. Some of these important questions should be addressed by challenging certain traditional ways of assessing work and worth. Do not criticise old practices—they must have been of benefit as reflected in business performances of the past. They need, however, to be challenged for their current and future relevance. The costs of industrial R&D are escalating, as are the complexity and speed of change faced by most businesses. Discovering that seamless link between consumer needs, discovery and the marketplace—and doing so better and faster than competitors— will distinguish the leaders. The rewards of being number two or number three are becoming progressively less attractive. Industrial R&D has been considered by traditionalists as being too close to commerce and removed from the realm of blue sky enquiries. My plea to more precisely link R&D to business needs may intensify their criticism. However, the demand for accountability from science and technology now transcends

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the boundaries of commerce. Government and taxpayers are more demanding of those charged with training young minds and others promising benefits from science and technology in academia and national laboratories. This questioning environment has been intensified by rapid and free flow of information as well as the increasing cost of R&D. People all over the world are that much better informed with each passing day, and are especially interested in those developments which improve their quality of life and nature on this planet. This is creating pressures and challenges of its own. I believe that these pressures and challenges are most conducive to original thinking and are creating a more genuine and challenging scientific atmosphere in academic institutions as well as in industry. There are many acknowledged positive factors correlating R&D intensity in industry with competitiveness: there are others which are highly contentious. What remains incontrovertible is that no successful commercial activity can be sustained without continuous renewal, much of it derivable from leading edge science and technology. It is not possible to do justice to a subject which is both complex and vast in just one chapter. I have therefore, tried to distil, from current practices and experiences in my own work environment (largely in the multinational consumer product industry), issues which might help illustrate certain trends in this industry. Some of these could have wider relevance. In undertaking this task, I will touch upon a number of issues, starting with certain developments in the 1990s, followed by brief descriptions of advances in innovation, R&D management and changes in the management of human resources. The final section deals with the cost and value of investing in R&D, the understanding of which lies at the heart of managing science and technology in industry in order to gain a competitive advantage.

MEGA TRENDS OF THE 1990s I begin by making a simple observation. In the consumer product industry what distinguishes successful products is quality, innovation and cost.

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Comprehension of this simple fact sometimes becomes awfully confused when we consider the numerous mega-trends in the marketplace: 1. Better Quality: 2. More Functionality: 3. Heightened Environmental Awareness: 4. Greater Naturalness: 5. More Convenience: 6. Wider Variety: 7. Improved Asset Utilisation:

a prerequisite in its broadest sense products that deliver significant benefits a continuing pressure and \opportunity sought in more and more markets still a key requirement ranges, customised preducts through flexible manufacturing and supply chain management

For example, when tackling quality or functionality, what in effect a manufacturer is trying to do is to interpret, in product terms, the consumer’s message of expectations. Clearly, to build qualities relating to the environment into products, convenience, etc., requires an intimate understanding of con-

sumer attitudes and habits, as well as of the dynamics of the markets in which we operate. These have become more prominent in the 1990s because of even greater competition, opening up of new markets, and instantaneous communications around the

world. In order for a producer to derive benefits from these trends, or indeed to survive, the economy of flexibility and the economy of scale related to investments have to be carefully balanced to manage the cost of sustainable growth more competitively.

INNOVATION Thus, a number of important factors which determine customer expectations are driving businesses to become even more agile and more innovative than before. It is becoming clear that to win,

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businesses need to innovate. Innovation helps beat the competition—by growing faster, by capturing market share, by being the first to market with new products and by generating more profit for investment. The management of innovation and its influence on business in the 1990s probably best illustrates this change. It is not only important to be successful in bringing forth new innovations, but even more important to do so speedily and cost-efficiently. A successful innovation could sustain market leadership for many more years in the 1970s and 1980s compared to now. It has been forecast that the half-life of successful innovations is likely to get even shorter (see Figure 7.1). 25 B 1960-1970 m 1970-1980 1980-1990 1990-2000

20

PRODUCT inyears HALF-LIFE

1960-1970

1970-1980 1980-1990 RECENT DECADES : 1970-2000

Figure 7.1

1990-2000

Innovation half-life

The late Mr Honda had begun to exhort his employees on the value of time way back in 1937, saying ‘Time is not negotiable’. He was indeed much ahead of his peers.

R&D INTENSITY: PROFIT GROWTH AND MARGINS Well managed R&D is one of several factors which, singly or collectively, determine the speed and success of any innovation. Thus, although the remarks that follow pertain to R&D, the

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influence of ideas originating from all other parts of an organis ation and its businesses are probably even more important. The graph shown in Figure 7.2, relating R&D to growth from a study of European companies,’ best illustrates the point. Itis well known that trying to achieve savings by reducing R&D expenditure is symptomatic of a business in decline. It is equally important to realise that increasing R&D spend is no guarantee for success in a business which is not well managed. 15

@ Series 1 —— Linear (Series1)

05

° INTENSITY R&D )a

“1.5 -20

-8

-3

8

18

28

37

ANNUAL RATE OF PROFIT GROWTH (%)

Figure 7.2

R&D intensity versus profit growth

The most intensive study correlating R&D expenditure and profitability was probably that undertaken by Prof. Mansfield of the University of Pennsylvania covering 76 US industrial firms? (see Figure 7.3). Unfortunately, such studies are few and far between, and in any event cannot replace individual firm analysis and benchmarking of best practices.

FirST TO MARKET In addition to underscoring the importance of innovation and the role of R&D, a third (and probably the most important) success

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30

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