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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (769081)	2/11/2014 7:53:40 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 1577984

A Brief History of the U.S. Federal Government and Innovation (Part III): *World War II and Beyond (1945 – 1987)* By the Staff of the IEEE History Center It is only through “learning by doing” that organizations create the competence to bring embryonic technologies to commercially viable products and services. The experimentation that accompanies learning-by-doing can be costly and entail considerable risks. If private enterprise can imagine commercial promise in a radically new technical idea then it will gamble. But there are limits to a firm’s willingness to gamble. If the idea is too speculative, with the outcome of R&D completely unpredictable, or if the scale of the R&D is too large or far exceeds the perceived commercial value of the idea, then firms will be extremely reluctant to gamble. Surprisingly, public enterprise has often been willing to underwrite big-stake gambles when private industry has been unwilling or unable to do so. The visible hand of government has made mistakes, but it has also played a strong role in laying the foundation for America’s technological and industrial leadership. Spanning the period from the American Revolution to the end of World War II, part one and part two of this series looked at the roles of the U.S. federal government as an actor in, and director of, the innovation process. Through six examples, this third and last part of the series will illustrate the hands-on role of government in shaping the direction, rhythm, timing of innovation during the post World War II period. The six examples are 1) the aeronautical industry, 2) the Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC), 3) computers, 4) semiconductors, 5) The Global Positioning System, and 6) the Lithium battery. todaysengineer.org