Irving Langmuir and the Pursuit of Science and Technology in the Corporate Environment

An researcher of tremendous capability and diverse interests, Irving Langmuir was at once a chemist, physicist, engineer, and employee of the General Electric Company (GE) for over forty years. He won the Nobel Prize in chemistry (1932) and was awarded sixty-three U.S. patents, some of considerable value. Not surprisingly, understanding Langmuir's work presents a problem to those who approach his career equipped with preconceptions about the roles of scientists and engineers in industry. Physicist Percy Bridgman recognized this dilemma in his introduction to Langmuir's collected works: It is not easy to separate Langmuir's work into physical, chemical, and engineering components, but all three are intertwined with an intimacy not often exhibited in the work of other scientists.1 Bridgman thought of Langmuir as a scientist, not as an engineer or, more broadly, an industrial researcher. Yet the term scientist alone does not clearly describe Langmuir, nor would it fit some of the other excellent American researchers of the