Imperial Valley press., 1938-12-21
An Economists
Viewpoint
By john T. Flynn

Charles F. Kettering, General
Motors laboratory man and in
vention hunter, told the OMahoney
monopoly committee in Washington
that what the country needs is new
industries. But what interested
me most was his statement that you
cannot just go out and look for
new inventions and find them in
a hurry.
He said he had young men work.
ing on definite problems for Is
years who had not found the an
sWer yet. In that statement lies
an important fact for those who
are sitting around waiting for
new invention to drag us out OF
the hole. once spent day with
another man like Charles Ketter-
ing-Dr. Willis r. Whitney, retired
head of the General Electric Lab
oratories.
He said that few of the great
epoch making inventions, were dis
covered by looking specifically for
them. Scientists stumbled over
them, often looking for something
else.
The Roentgen rays = X-rays
which have played so amazing
role in medicine and engineering
were not discovered because
someone realized We ought to have
a means of looking through
mans body and observing its de-
fects. Roentgen was looking for
something else. When he found
the X-ray it was good for looking
through the teeth at hidden de-
fects.
We did not learn to fly by work.
ing through long series OF in
ventions directed at that precise
end. Flying became possible anc
indeed inevitable, DR.. Whitney told
me, when the gasoline motor was
discovered. The man who made
that motor was not thinking about
inyenting flying.
Radio was not discovered by men
seeking directly for a means OF
distant communication or of broad
casting. 1t was an accident. When
Edison discovered the incandescent
lamp he was deeply troubled by a
glow which appeared near the base
of the filament in the lamp. He
worked and others worked to get
rid of that defect-they called 1T
the Edison effect.
They did not know it was radio
they were trying to get rid of. For
it is that phenomenon which led
to radio when it was understood.
1t had actually been discovered for
years before anyone knew it.
At the time I talked to DR.. Whit
ney he had just made strange
discovery. He wasn't looking for
it. He was experimenting with
electricity as means of stimulat-
ing the growth of plants. Out of
mere curiosity he subjected an egg
to the small device he had con-
structed. 1t killed the egg. SO he
thought perhaps he had found a
means of killing insect pests. He
put flies in a test tube and applied
his current.
The flies died. When he ran a
cold air current through the tube
he found the flies came to life.
Soon he discovered that what had
happened to the flies was that the
electricity had given them fever.
In the end, what started out to be
a means of stimulating the growth
of plants ended in the fever ma
chine-a machine to give fever
to human beings and to
control that fever perfectly.
And 1t Is an odd thing that this
same Charles Kettering, intrigued
by DR.. Whitney's interesting ex-
pertinent, has spent a great deal
of money in his home town OF
Dayton to enable physicians to ex-
pertinent with DR.. Whitney's fever
machine.
Some amazing invention one OF
these days may bob up to knock
the depression in the eye. But it
will probably come as unexpected
ly as the X-ray, the flying ma
chine, the radio, the fever ma
chine. One thing is sure-inyen-
ton is not done.