新概念英语4册第15课

Secrecy in industry

Two factors weigh havily against the effectiveness of scientific in industry. One is the general atmosphere of secrecy in which it is carried out, the other the lack of freedom of the individual research worker. In so far as many inquiry is a secret one, it naturally limits all those engaged in carring it out from effective contact with their fellow scientists either in other countries or in universities, or even, often enough, in other departments of the same firm. The degree of secrecy naturally varies considerably. Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches which are of such general and fundamental nature that it is a positive advantage to them not to keep them secret. Yet a great many processes depending on such research are sought for with complete secrecy until the stage at which patents can be taken out. Even more processes are never patented at all but kept as secret processes. This applies particularly to chemical industries, where chance discoveries play a much larger part than they do in physical and mechanical industries. Sometimes the secrecy goes to such an extent that the whole nature of the research cannot be mentioned. Many firms, for instance, have great difficulty in obtaining technical or scientific books from libraries because they are unwilling to have their names entered as having taken out such and such a book for fear the agents of other firms should be able to trace the kind of research they are likely to be undertaking.

有两个因素严重影响了科学在工业上的应用。一个是现实中的保密气氛，另一个是研究员缺少自由的个人空间。一旦一项调查为认为是保密的，则实际上限制了所有科学家希望获得它并进行有效交流的努力。无论这些科学家是再另一个国家或着是另一所大学内，甚至更普通的，在一家公司的不同部门内。保密程度是有相当差别的。一些大公司鼓励在一些通用或者基础类研究中不进行保密是有积极的优点。然而许多研究进程是完全保密的，直到其获得专利。甚至更多的过程从未拥有专利但仍然保密。这尤其应用在化学工业中。相比较物理和机械工业，化学中偶然发现占了很大一部分。有时保密甚至达到了研究的全部计划都不能提起的范围。例如许多公司当从图书馆获得技术或科技书籍时会面临一个大难题，以为害怕其他公司的代理人能够推测出他们正准备进行的研究，他们不愿意使他们的名字一次次出现在借书名单上。