Notes on Bell Labs

I write this newsletter because of my conviction that we need a well-developed science of systems — systems science.

One of the main barriers preventing the development of such a science is the lack of resources being devoted towards developing basic and rigorous theoretical foundations for the field. Without a solid set of shared theoretical foundations, I believe any claims about the potential for systems science to reliably serve society are unrealistic.

So I’ve been wondering — what useful lessons can those who believe in systems science learn from historical organizations that intentionally drove breakthroughs in fundamental science in the past?

I begin my exploration with looking at Bell Labs — the company responsible for connecting the United States via telephone during the 20th century. Bell served as the birthplace of notable scientific achievements including the creation of information theory, the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, and the quantum mechanical principles that enabled the transistor.

Here are a few standout qualities that contributed to Bell’s success.

Freedom of Research

Mervin Kelly started working at Bell as a physicist in 1925 and went on to serve as its president from 1951-1959. During his watch Bell pioneered technologies such as the laser and the solar cell. Reflecting on his career, he described the organization as an “institute of creative technology.”¹

Kelly believed that basic research was the foundation which supported all advances in technology. He ensured that researchers had “freedoms equivalent to those of the research man in the university” and thought research should be a non-scheduled area of work with no deadlines, objectives, or progress reports.

Perhaps most importantly, he thought that scientists needed to confine their efforts to their research and not be pressured to worry at all about developing that research into something useful — otherwise they risked “losing contact with the forefront of their field.”

Division of Labor

Operations at Bell Labs fell into three categories.

30% of the staff worked in research and fundamental development. This is the department where reservoirs of basic scientific knowledge were created. Specialized development teams were responsible for identifying mature research and starting the process of connecting it to technologies that would serve the organization’s goals.

10% of the staff worked in systems engineering. Systems engineers played a crucial role in technical planning geared towards integrating the disparate knowledge from research, development, and operations. They would create studies appraising the potential of development of projects and drafting detailed plans for their implementation.

60% of the staff worked in specific development and designs. These workers carried out the designs crafted in systems engineering and were responsible for building labs, creating designs, and producing specifications.

Clearly, this setup worked well for Bell during their heyday. I wonder what modern systems science might learn about developing healthy feedback loops between basic and applied research.

Facilities

Kelly was very particular about how the physical environment was designed. For him, it was a key factor in creating conditions conducive for creativity and productivity. He embraced a functional building design that used flexible and modular rooms with a distinction between two types of functional spaces: labs/shops and offices. This allowed for granular control over room size and for the physical space to be rearranged quickly and cheaply. The flexibility of lab space made significant contributions to operations.

Diagram of a typical lab and office area at Bell — source

Takeaways

While there is a lot we can learn from the success of Bell labs and it’s a fun trip down memory lane, the authors of Bringing Back the Golden Days of Bell Labs, wisely emphasize the challenges any modern organization would face trying to recreate their success.²

Bell was the benefactor of a historically unique government sponsored monopoly held by their parent company AT&T. They had a very substantial money machine at their disposal which gave them freedom to make long term strategic commitments and have top notch scientists freely exploring their interests.

In the modern age where big tech companies have divisions spread across continents and people are accustomed to remote work, it’s a lot harder to bring everyone under one roof.

I would also note that Bell’s scientific researchers were heavily focused on pushing the boundaries of the physical sciences (physics, chemistry) and mathematics relevant to the hard engineering problem of electronic communications. Systems science aspires to find relevant laws and principles that extend into the very fuzzy realms of biology, psychology, economics, and political science. This certainly limits the extent to which practices from Bell are directly relevant.

Still, I think there’s a lot to be learned from studying Bell Labs. Next week I’ll share some notes on Xerox PARC.

1. Kelly, M. (1950). The Bell Telephone Laboratories—An example of an institute of creative technology. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 203(1074), 287–301. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1950.0140

2. Georgescu, I. (2022). Bringing back the golden days of Bell Labs. Nature Reviews Physics, 4(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00426-6