I/EC
The Glory Road
August 1958, Volume 50, No. 8 APPLIED Director
JOURNALS,
of Publications,
Editorial Executive Production
ACS
C. B. Larrabee
Director,
Waller J . M u r p h y
Editor,
James M. Crowe
Manager,
Joseph H. K u n e y
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY Editor, Will H. Shearon, Jr. EDITORIAL
HEADQUARTERS
W A S H I N G T O N 6 , D. C. 1 1 5 5 Sixteenth St., N . W . Phone Republic 7 - 3 3 3 7 Teletype W A 2 3 Associate Editors: G. Gladys Gordon, Stella A n d e r s o n , Ruth Cornette, Katherine I. Biggs, G e o r g e B. Krantz Assistant Editors: M e l v y n A . Kohudic, Arthur P o u l o t , Robert J . Riley, Robert J . K e l l e y , Ruth M . H o w o r t h , Eugenia Keller, Sue M . Solliday, W i l l i a m H . G a y Editorial Assistants: M a l v i n a B. Prelss, Ruth R e y n a r d , Gloria H. Wills, Katherine H. G i n n a n e Layout and Production: M e l v i n D. Buckner ( A r t ) ; Hanns L. Sperr, Betty V . Kieffer, Roy F. N a t h , Clarence L. R a k o w BRANCH
EDITORIAL
OFFICES
C H I C A G O 1 , ILL. Room 9 2 6 , 3 6 South W a b a s h A v e . Phone State 2 - 5 1 4 8 Teletype CG 7 2 5 Associate Editors: H o w a r d J . Sanders, Chester Placek Assistant Editor: Laurence J . White H O U S T O N 2 , TEX., 7 1 8 M e l r o s e Bldg. Phone F a i r f a x 3 - 7 1 0 7 Teletype H O 7 2 Associate Editor: Assistant Editor:
Bruce F. Greek Earl V . A n d e r s o n
NEW Y O R K 1 6 , Ν . Υ . , 2 Park A v e . Phone O r e g o n 9 - 1 6 4 6 Teletype N Y 1 - 4 7 2 6 Associate Editors: W i l l i a m Q . H u l l , Harry Stenerson, D a v i d M . Kiefer, D. G r a y W e a v e r , Walter S, Fedor, M o r t o n Salkind Assistant Editor: Louis A . A g n e l l o S A N F R A N C I S C O 4 , CALIF. 7 0 3 M e c h a n i c s ' Institute Bldg., 5 7 Post St. Phone Exbrook 2 - 2 8 9 5 Teletype SF 5 4 9 Associate Editor: Assistant Editor:
Richard H . N e w h a l l D a v i d E. G u s h e e
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C a b l e JIECHEM
A l b e r t S. Hester
Contributing Editors: H. Carl B a u m a n , S. M . MacCutcheon, Robert F. W a l l , J a m e s B. Weaver, W . J. Youden Advisory Board: A . H. Batchelder, James M . Church, Lauchlin M . Currie, A r n o C. Fieldner, Leo Friend, G u s t a v e H e i n e m a n n , Samuel D. Koonce, C. J . Krister, Ε. Ε. M c S w e e n e y , F. D r e w M a y f l e l d , W a y n e E. K u h n , M a x S. Peters, Earl P. Stevenson, H . G l a d y s S w o p e , Richard C. W a u a h
Advertising Management REINHOLD PUBLISHING C O R P . 4 3 0 Park A v e . , N e w York 2 2 , Ν . Υ . (For Branch Offices see p a g e 1 2 5 A)
128 A
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
β \ FEW weeks ago the general manager of a plant called us from the airport. During the conversation he said, " I am having trouble get ting production men. Everybody wants to go into research and de velopment nowadays; nobody wants to go out and operate plants." It was not always thus. A few years ago it was difficult to get chemi cal· engineering graduates to go into research and development— production was the attraction. Production was where "real" engineer ing took place; research and development was the "long-haired" end of the business. Production was the direct route to management; research was not. Things have changed, thank goodness. Research and development have come into their own; young graduates don't have to be sold on the importance of application research in hard dol lars. They know that "research" can mean a variety of interesting jobs and that research is also the route to management, or to senior staff positions, if management is not desired. But production is no less im portant. All the R&D in the world will be useless unless there are men to operate plants to make the materials developed in research. Perhaps too much attention has been given to glory. The young man of today from grade school on sees and hears of remarkable achieve ments ; we use glory as one of the lures to a scientific career. A few years ago a topic discussed in our "Professional Side" feature was "The Importance of Importance." Most people want to feel impor tant, but there are other ways of attaining importance than public glory. Recognition in the company, by one's associates, or just the deep personal satisfaction of doing a job well, are many times all the glory that we need. Money? Yes, we all want money, although our desires vary in degree. And the path to monetary advancement is just as good for the good men in production as it is in research and de velopment. One factor that we hope has been partly responsible for the increased interest in research and development is the increased stress on funda mentals, and the real challenges that have been thrown out to young scientists. Even this is not new in kind—only in degree. We were in terested in reading the Corning Glass Works' booklet "Sand and Im agination," issued to mark the 50th anniversary of the Corning Re search Department. Studies almost 40 years ago at Corning contrib uted to the understanding that strength in tempered glass came from strain set up in rapid chilling, and Corning soon began tempering lan tern globes and insulators, answering a very knotty, practical problem. But early attempts to produce tempered glass for kitchen use were balked by inability to balance strain evenly throughout the glass. Corning scientists went deeper into the fundamentals. The result is the tempered stove-top glassware in our kitchens today. A brand new book by Maurice G. Larian, on "Fundamentals of Chemical Engineering Operations," tries to put what, why, and how in proper balance. Dr. Larian says in his foreword that his style is analyti cal without minimizing the significant role played by the empirical approach in engineering thinking. He places great emphasis on the thermodynamic viewpoint. But, he says, "While the ultimate aim of engineering education may be to answer the engineering problems of what to do and why, the fact should not be overlooked that the graduat ing engineer must know how to do things." ' We hope our friend's experience is an exceptional one. We need production men with both practical knowledge and a deep understand ing of the reasons. Not everyone can be the quarterback, and this is just as true in research as in production. The road to glory is a manylaned one and the end of the lanes may not be the same for all of us.
