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Lesson 15 Secrecy in industry 工业中的秘密 Two factors weigh heavily against the effectiveness of scientificresearch in industry. One is the general atmosphere of secrecy in which it iscarried out, the other the lack of freedom of the individual research worker.In so far as any inquiry is a secret one, it naturally limits all those engagedin carrying it out from effective contact with their fellow scientists eitherin other countries or in universities, or even, often enough, in otherdepartments of the same firm. The degree of secrecy naturally varies considerably.Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches which are of such generaland fundamental nature that it is a positive advantage to them not to keep themsecret. Yet a great many processes depending on such research are sought forwith complete secrecy until the stage at which patents can be taken out. Evenmore processes are never patented at all but kept as secret processes. Thisapplies particularly to chemical industries, where chance discoveries play amuch larger part than they do in physical and mechanical industries. Sometimesthe secrecy goes to such an extent that the whole nature of the research cannotbe mentioned. Many firms, for instance, have great difficulty in obtainingtechnical or scientific books from libraries because they are unwilling to havetheir names entered as having taken out such and such a book for fear theagents of other firms should be able to trace the kind of research they arelikely to be undertaking. | 
