The CHAIRMAN. In other words, the bulk of the extension of this art is a result of your own laboratory, your own work?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How many persons are employed in that sort of work?

Mr. BAEKELAND. In research work, 250. That also includes some janitors and a few maintenance men around the laboratory.

NECESSITY FOR PATENTS IN PROTECTING RESEARCH WORK

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Are all your research workers under obligation to give to the company the patents which they may devise and the discoveries which they make?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Oh, yes; we supply them with the equipment, we pay them to do the work, we direct what work they are to do. We can't permit our research men to work on their own. They might go into very interesting fields which would be of no use to us, not commercial. We do not run an academic laboratory. We are in business, and although we do some molecule chasing and let a few men have their heads in work along lines in which they might feel inclined to do something, a greater part of our research work is directly applied to the needs of the business, and much of the research work is dictated by our customers or by prospective customers.

Someone will come to us with a problem. Well, the man with the new sandpaper disk, for example. He wanted something that would replace glue because he was having trouble with glue and knew its limitations. I give this only as one of a great many examples. He came to us to try to develop something to replace glue and give a better sandpaper, a sandpaper that would be waterproof and have longer life. We went to work on the problem, gave it to the research laboratory, and they developed resins which had the characteristics necessary to do that particular job, and much of our research work is dictated to us from the outside.

The CHAIRMAN. But it is all planned by a general staff.

Mr. BAEKELAND. All planned directly by the management and not only by the research management; it is also directed by the executive management-sales and executives also have their say in what we are going to do or what we are going to quit working on in research.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, each person in the research laboratory is told just what his task may be with the exception of a few who are engaged in what you call molecule chasing?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, the phrase that I think Dr. Jewett used here the other day is applicable here. It is cooperative effort under control.

Mr. BAEKELAND. That's it, and the men themselves help each other. They cooperate. Each has something to contribute and those men have meetings together in which they exchange problems. That is the way it works out.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, since you have been associated with this company and with this industry you have had occasion to observe the work of other laboratories?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And the development of patents generally, have you not?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What could you tell the committee with respect to the position that the research laboratory occupies in the modern field of invention and patents? Have you reached any conclusions about that?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Yes, I have. I was just trying to say it as succinctly as possible, because it is a large subject. The great technical advances that we have witnessed have been the result of research work, either by individuals or by organized research in laboratories of large companies. The advances, the improvements, have been largely, I am convinced, owing to research. New products, new useful things, new ways of doing things, can only come from carefully applied work done in scientific laboratories-improvements in our paints, in our fabrics, in the materials we use such as these.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, we couldn't make the advances which are being made without the extensive and expensive equipment which is supplied in these large laboratories?

Mr. BAEKELAND. That is true. They are making the advances. No one else is doing it. Without those laboratories, naturally these advances wouldn't be there.

The CHAIRMAN. That is exactly what I am trying to develop. In other words, the collective work of a group of individuals is becoming gradually more important than the individual work of an individual inventor.

Mr. BAEKELAND. That is true.

The CHAIRMAN. And as the frontiers of science are pushed further and further back, it is the collective and cooperative enterprise rather than the enterprise of the individual which is bringing the greatest returns to civilization.

Mr. BAEKELAND. Very likely.

Senator KING. However, the field for the inventive genius of the individual is not narrowed, even by the collective activities to which the chairman has referred.

Mr. BAEKELAND. No, sir. I think that it is increased, because each new development opens new vistas and new avenues that suggest themselves, avenues of approach to the solving of another problem. Our increased knowledge, our increased information as a result of this is giving us more and more hints and suggestions to follow, and the thing I think is cumulative in a geometrical progression rather than an arithmetical progression.

Senator KING. Isn't it true that frequently a basic patent which may have been obtained by this collective energy and collective effort becomes the basis of a large number of improvements which are developed by the inventor in a small way, and as a result of his interpretation of the defects, as there are defects even in basic patents, and he addresses himself to improving the basic patent, and as a result of that many of the patents which are obtained merely cluster around the basic patent.

Mr. BAEKELAND. That is very true. That is particularly apt in this case. That is precisely what happened. My father came out in 1909 with a few patents. Following that he continued his research work, brought about improvements and modifications of those first materials as well as bringing out additional new materials.

Senator KING. Did you give a definition which would be comprehensive as well as detailed of what plastics are, how broad a field they cover?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Well, that is a large order. You see-well, I can read you a list here of some of the industries.

Senator KING. Generally, when you speak of plastics what does the ordinary ignorant man such as myself and others comprehend it to be?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Of course, some of these people call paint and varnish resins plastics. I don't think they are palstics. I think anything that can be shaped by applying pressure to something, squeezing it into shape, is a plastic. A piece of marble, like this marble, is shaped by machinery. That is not a plastic operation. If, on the other hand, these columns had been formed out of a loose unconsolidated material, and under pressure had been formed into that shape there, they would then have had to be a plastic material.

Senator KING. Almost any element, then, that might be congealed, if I may use that expression, might be the basis of plastics. The principal elements, though, are carbon, are they not, and oxygen and nitrogen?

Mr. BAEKELAND. All of these plastics are organic materials and all organic materials contain carbon, and these here, for example.

Here is a urea material. This thing is made out of a base for fertilizer.

Senator KING. I beg your pardon?

Mr. BAEKELAND. This is a urea material made out of the base of a fertilizer. That is an organic material, carbon, nitrogen. Urea is largely used for fertilizer. It is very cheap. It is made from the air and the supply is unlimited.

The CHAIRMAN. The word "plastic" no longer actually covers the field of the articles that you produce. Take that wheel, that gear, for example, that is cut rather than pressed.

Mr. BAEKELAND. Yes, but you see that gear is moulded.
The CHAIRMAN. That is what I was getting at.
I understood you

to tell me it was cut.

Mr. BAEKELAND. Afterward. When that gear was made it was just as you see it except no teeth were cut into it.

The CHAIRMAN. I see.

Mr. BAEKELAND. And the metal hub was pressed in or moulded in in the original operation, moulded in as a matter of fact. That is a plastic; that was moulded in that shape. So was that box in your hand.

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I conceive to be plastic, anything that is molded.

Mr. BAEKELAND. These are truly plastics. These are cloth coverings made of some of our materials; they are alcohol and oil and water, weather resistant. They have their uses for gas masks and upholstery and raincoats and things of that sort.

The CHAIRMAN. Tell me, is this a substitute for wool?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Oh, no. No; that is not a substitute for wool. We would like to find one, as a matter of fact. I don't think we ever shall.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, you know I have been hearing some rumors of such a substitute. You haven't heard of it?

Mr. BAEKELAND. We hear a great many rumors before we actually find one.

The CHAIRMAN. Now I am asking you a question which I may transmit to some of my constituents. You have not yet seen a substitute for wool as rayon is for silk?

Mr. BAEKELAND. No, I have not.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank God for that. [Laughter.]

Mr. BAEKELAND. Speaking of plastics again

Representative REECE (interposing). If you will permit a digression there, don't the rayon people themselves however make a woolen blanket or blanket to be used in place of a woolen blanket?

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I am sure that if it hasn't come to the attention of the witness it is not worth much. [Laughter.]

Representative REECE. I would be glad to have you come down home and look.

Mr. DIENNER. Mr. Baekeland, what is the latest development which would be rather unusual in regard to your industry, with regard to your company which you could tell us about?

Mr. BAEKELAND. There are a great number of them; there is one perhaps more spectacular than some of the others. Using our materials (we take no credit for this development, we have been merely supplying materials for it and in a small way helping-I want to repeat that we don't take credit for the thing) it is possible, in fact it is being done, to produce an airplane wing or an airplane fuselage on a cycle of every 2 hours with rather simple and inexpensive equipment. It is a material which the Bureau of Standards shows has a strength weight ratio greater than any of the materials employed at the present time. You can well imagine what that means in production of aircraft. Whereas jigs and tools and a lot of expensive equipment would take a long time to build, that is now unnecessary to make. The separate units that go into the construction of a wing or a fuselage can now be eliminated. The great period of time required for assembling is over, simply by use of plastics in combination with some other materials. An airplane fuselage, an airplane wing, can be turned out every 2 hours with one piece of equipment. The CHAIRMAN. You said a wing or a fuselage.

Mr. BAEKELAND. Yes; or both.

The CHAIRMAN. Could you turn them out together?

Mr. BAEKELAND. They are made separately, they are made on a different form, a different mold, but it takes the same amount of time for a wing as for a fuselage. When that shell has been made, adding merely the internal bracing, models can be very quickly changed in case of war, or in commerce. When a model becomes obsolete or less desirable a new one can readily be made; without very much delay and with very little cost you can make the change.

The CHAIRMAN. Is this method being used?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Experimentally only. It is being tested, it is under observation; yes, it is coming.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it your judgment that it is beyond the experimental stage? I mean there is no question in your mind of its utility? Mr. BAEKELAND. That is true.

The CHAIRMAN. Have the airplane manufacturers been advised of it? Mr. BAEKELAND. This is still very new. There are rumors about it. The CHAIRMAN. Is that method covered by a special patent?

Mr. BAEKELAND. There are patents applied for on the method, not by us, but by the people with whom we have been working.

Mr. PEOPLES. Mr. Chairman, I take it, it has been called to the attention of the air forces of both the Army and the Navy.

Mr. BAEKELAND. Oh, yes; they are well aware of it and as matter of fact I have been given permission to mention this thing today or I shouldn't have done so.

The CHAIRMAN. These applications have been made by citizens of the United States?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Oh, yes.

Senator KING. Does this fuselage take the place in all of its parts of aluminum or magnesium. There is a magnesium alloy which is stronger and lighter, as I remember, than aluminum.

Mr. BAEKELAND. You couldn't make a magnesium airplane, wing and fuselage, in 2 hours with 9 men.

Senator KING. What I mean is so far as the durability is concerned. Mr. BAEKELAND. The durability is far greater. Senator KING. Than the metal?

Mr. BAEKELAND. Oh, yes. You see the metal has fatigue, for one thing, it crystallizes and has flaws; its strength ratio is lower than this material, and there is great fabrication cost, there is trouble with all these metal things in an airplane. Each of these metal parts-there are a great number of them-are assembled, each is shaped, machined and drilled and milled and then assembled with nuts and bolts and rivets and one thing and another, and as a matter of fact the absence of rivets in these planes has shown an increase of 35 miles an hour, just by cutting out skin friction, the resistance of the air to the rivets. There is an increased speed of the planes under test of 35 miles an hour.

Senator KING. Then the utilization of these products to which you have just referred would supersede the present method of constructing fuselages and other parts?

Mr. BAEKELAND. It would simplify it a great deal.

Senator KING. Of course you haven't as yet succeeded in manufacturing something that would take the place of the steel for the engine? Mr. BAEKELAND. Oh, no, no, this is just the wing and the fuselage. The CHAIRMAN. Give him a chance, Senator.

Mr. BAEKELAND. They will still make the engine the same way. Senator KING. The Senator was afraid you might intrude on the sheep. I don't want you to intrude upon the iron ore mines. Mr. BAEKELAND. I don't think it is going to intrude on that. Representative REECE. What is its resistance to vibration? Mr. BAEKELAND. It has a high fatigue resistance, and it is weather resistant so that only a color coat, not a protective coat, has to be put on, and you would be amazed how much these airplane designers worry about a coat of paint on a plane, the added weight.

The CHAIRMAN. Is the absence of the bolt the only factor which tends to increase the speed?

Mr. BAEKELAND. The rivets?

The CHAIRMAN. The rivets and nuts.

Mr. BAEKELAND. Yes; that is the only thing.

The CHAIRMAN. The material itself has no effect on speed?

Mr. BAEKELAND. No; it is a perfectly smooth surface rather than a riveted surface. Now the same method can be applied to the