The death of corporate research labs • Hacker News Board

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#191

Post by KineticLensman » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:19 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #180

scarface74 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the Space Shuttle really a great example? Two of the five exploded killing people and it ended up being more expensive and less efficient than the non reusable Russian equivalent. https://gizmodo.com/the-space-shuttle-was-a-beautiful-but-te...

Is explode the right verb for Columbia? Also, it's not as though the Russians and Soviets didn't have their share of in-flight fatalities as well. The shuttle was capable of missions that wouldn't have otherwise been possible. It also ferried more people at once. That said, the shuttle was severely underutilized and hence costed a lot more than it should have.

> Is explode the right verb for Columbia?

I don't think so, really.

Columbia didn’t explode in the sense of a massive detonation of something onboard. It had a hole punched in the wing during take off. During re-entry, hot gasses penetrated the wing and led to failure of the control surfaces, and the resultant loss of control (it was gliding at this point) caused heating and dynamic pressures that eventually led to vehicle break up [0].

Strictly speaking, the Challenger also wasn’t destroyed by an explosion. The failure of an O-ring on one of the Solid Rocket Boosters led to pressurised burning gas destroying the attachment hardware the held the SRB in place. The SRB ripped away causing the entire stack to tumble. Challenger ended up at the top and had its back broken by aerodynamic forces at the same time as the thin skin of the external fuel tank shredded, leading to a sudden massive burn of the fuel it contained (which caused the ‘explosion’ effect so visible from the ground). The crew compartment 'survived' all this and continued ballistically upward before falling back to the sea where it was destroyed on impact, killing the crew. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#192

Post by rubidium » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #94

rubidium wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problems in science can be solved by much smaller teams. LHC is just proving out the dominant paradigm. It’s not gonna help us understand dark matter and _that’s_ the real anomaly in the current physical understanding of the world. Crack that an you’re the next Einstein/newton or at least Planck/schrodinger/hooke. There’s plenty of room for innovation in green energy tech, housing materials, ag science, etc..…

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how scientific research (especially physics) works. You take a model. You figure out some observable predictions of that model. You run an experiment to test that prediction. If it's right, the experiment stands as support to the model's accuracy. More importantly, sometimes the predictions are wrong. After a pattern of anomalies, someone comes up with a model that e…

We must be talking past each other, as I understand it quite well.

My point (which I understand is controversial) is there's no requirement for billions of dollars and thousands of scientists to make the next big breakthrough. There's still low hanging fruit. Less than there used to be, but it's still there.

The LHC and big $$ funding is _one_ way to do it. So far its been unable to solve the biggest problems we have in physics (agreed that it's helped disprove some).

We're at a point now that is similar to what people were saying in 1900. Some people say "we've almost dusted this physics thing off and figured it all out". I'm fairly confident something is going to come along from some small corner of physics that will knock all our socks off the same way Quantum Mech and Relativity did... it may arrive this year or it may arrive in 120 years more to get there though.

The big problems in science can be solved by much smaller teams is my point. Sure it will take an army to completely work out the implications of the breakthrough. But the breakthrough "aha" can still come from an individual or small team.

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#193

Post by amelius » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #169

amelius wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a good thing, but realize that some day industry will build an application based on your ideas and patent the result. Patents are a monopoly on technology, and working for a university, probably the last thing you had in mind was that other people would monopolize your inventions so that their use would become limited.

University labs are generally good at dealing with patents. Researchers do generate patents where it makes sense, and the processes are set up such that the university gets some ownership with the option for the researchers to transfer the knowledge to companies e.g. student graduates and founds a startup with the patent as foundational IP. This is all intentional and it's one of the ways for the labs to do their job…

Still, patents are a way to provide exclusive access to technology, to those who pay. That's not something I personally would like to see happening to my inventions if I'd work at a university. It's also not how universities used to operate, traditionally.

Further, I feel that if it's paid for by the public, it belongs to the public.

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#194

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

mattkrause wrote: post #189

take_a_breath wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of what the Vision Fund could have achieved with this mindset. I’d love for a billionaire to offer 18-25 year-olds, $25k for a summer to explore new projects. You could fund 1000 kids with promising projects for $25 million. If the next great innovation will start as a toy, we need to encourage people to make more toys.

A few do. - There are three Allen Institutes (Brain Science, Cell Science, and AI), funded by Microsoft's Paul Allen in Seattle. - The Gates Foundation (also funded by Microsoft, I guess) funds research, though mostly at existing institutes. - The Howard Hughes Memorial Institute funds a bunch of research at its Janelia Farms Campus, plus provides lavish support investigators at universities. - Eli and Ethyl Broad pu…

[deleted]

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#195

Post by anewlanguage » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

mattkrause wrote: post #189

take_a_breath wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of what the Vision Fund could have achieved with this mindset. I’d love for a billionaire to offer 18-25 year-olds, $25k for a summer to explore new projects. You could fund 1000 kids with promising projects for $25 million. If the next great innovation will start as a toy, we need to encourage people to make more toys.

A few do. - There are three Allen Institutes (Brain Science, Cell Science, and AI), funded by Microsoft's Paul Allen in Seattle. - The Gates Foundation (also funded by Microsoft, I guess) funds research, though mostly at existing institutes. - The Howard Hughes Memorial Institute funds a bunch of research at its Janelia Farms Campus, plus provides lavish support investigators at universities. - Eli and Ethyl Broad pu…

Don't forget:

- Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

- Simons Foundation

- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

- Sloan Foundation

You can even put companies like Numenta on this list, which is pretty much blue sky research, even if nominally for profit

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#196

Post by mprovost » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #80

_8j50 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not being too large that forced a split up but their anti-competitive practices and positions. The regional bells still were big enough to run their own research labs. Imagine if Alphabet was broken up, Google search can still afford to run a research lab, as can youtube. The problem I think is how easy it is for large companies to acquire smaller companies. It's how they expand or enter a market, they refuse to…

> My answer: you will suffer from brain drain.and reputation loss,when you buy a smaller company,consumers assume that brand is now dead. You become a cemerery of dreams and ideas. You become an IBM,HP,Xerox and AT&T. Once the damage is done it becomes nearl impossible to recover from. Would Apple be a counter-example? Multitouch, PA Semi, Siri, TouchID, etc etc lots of Apple technology was acquired but nobody lament…

People here are constantly lamenting the lack of good multitouch on anything but a Macbook, especially in Linux. If Fingerworks had stayed as an independent company they could also sell their touchpads to Microsoft for the Surface. Of course Apple bought them before they were a well known brand; maybe that's why their acquisitions are more successful.

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#197

Post by missedthecue » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

cannabis_sam wrote: post #131

enitihas wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if Alphabet was broken up, Google search can still afford to run a research lab, as can youtube. It is far more likely that YouTube will go bankrupt, since running a free video service where videos are almost infinite and cache hits much lower is very costly. Couple that with all the other advantages of being with Google like access to talent and infra, I don't see YouTube surviving with Google. It's possib…

That would be fantastic tho, we would have an influx of startups competing in the video space, since they don’t have to compete with youtube being artificially propped up by a completely unrelated business model

I think YouTube fits in perfectly with Google. It allows them to offer another medium of advertisement (video) to their customers. If YouTube was split off, both creator earnings and YouTube earnings would fall through the floor because the ads wouldn't be worth so much without Google's targeting algorithm behind it.

An unrelated company to their business model is something like Waymo

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#198

Post by mattkrause » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

anewlanguage wrote: post #195

mattkrause wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few do. - There are three Allen Institutes (Brain Science, Cell Science, and AI), funded by Microsoft's Paul Allen in Seattle. - The Gates Foundation (also funded by Microsoft, I guess) funds research, though mostly at existing institutes. - The Howard Hughes Memorial Institute funds a bunch of research at its Janelia Farms Campus, plus provides lavish support investigators at universities. - Eli and Ethyl Broad pu…

Don't forget: - Chan Zuckerberg Initiative - Simons Foundation - Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation - Sloan Foundation You can even put companies like Numenta on this list, which is pretty much blue sky research, even if nominally for profit

Yes!

I was actually just looking at a job posting at the Simons Foundation, which makes its omission that much more embarrassing. The Schwartz Foundation also paid for some stuff (and a lot of pizza) in grad school,so I should give them a nod! CZI and Simons/Flatiron have their own buildings. I think GBM and Sloan are more grant-making organizations.

There's also DE Shaw Research, which is particularly interesting since the billionaire in question works there himself.

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#199

Post by dantheman » Thu, May 21, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

This article misses the fundamental way in research is funded. The US Government funds research through grants, and each scientist runs thier own little shop doing independent research... The problem is this isn't a directed research program.

The Manhattan Project, Space Race, etc had program managers telling scientists what problems to solve and had other scientists building the architecture, identifying gaps, and running parallel experiments. It was about the individual scientist it was about the program - so we had Feynman running computer simulations.

There was an end goal and people took less interesting, but necessary, jobs to move the project forward. Also, results were expected - not papers, but actual results to problems.

Re: The death of corporate research labs

#200

Post by dantheman » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #144

TomMarius wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2070 very probably will be entirely different than 1970, though. What changed is that computers have allowed us to go to space (at scale) and other incredible feats.

I remember thinking in 1980s that year 2000 would be something unrecognizable. You can feel this optimism in movies like Back to the Future, Blade Runner, Terminator or Escape From New York. They would set entirely different worlds in relatively near future, largely due to expectations from then recent technological change rates. In reality (aside from tremendous change of political landscape) the 80s and the 00s wer…

The ability to have all information at your fingertips everywhere is a big big change.