Basic, applied and technological research: Computer science and applied mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 113-134

  Lomnitz, Larissa Adler ^a   Cházaro, Laura ^b  

^a UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO   (Mexico)

^b El Colegio de Michoacan AC   (Mexico)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039390094     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631299029001005     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. The role of technology and applied research within science has been stressed from various perspectives. See, among others: Otto Mayr, 'The Science-Technology Relationship as a Historiographic Problem', Technology and Culture, Vol. 17 (1976), 663-72; Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker, 'The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology might Benefit Each Other', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 14, No. 3 (August 1984), 399-441, reprinted in Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987), 17-50; Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
2. The role of technology and applied research within science has been stressed from various perspectives. See, among others: Otto Mayr, 'The Science-Technology Relationship as a Historiographic Problem', Technology and Culture, Vol. 17 (1976), 663-72; Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker, 'The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology might Benefit Each Other', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 14, No. 3 (August 1984), 399-441, reprinted in Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987), 17-50; Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
3. The role of technology and applied research within science has been stressed from various perspectives. See, among others: Otto Mayr, 'The Science-Technology Relationship as a Historiographic Problem', Technology and Culture, Vol. 17 (1976), 663-72; Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker, 'The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology might Benefit Each Other', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 14, No. 3 (August 1984), 399-441, reprinted in Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987), 17-50; Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
4. The role of technology and applied research within science has been stressed from various perspectives. See, among others: Otto Mayr, 'The Science-Technology Relationship as a Historiographic Problem', Technology and Culture, Vol. 17 (1976), 663-72; Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker, 'The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology might Benefit Each Other', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 14, No. 3 (August 1984), 399-441, reprinted in Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987), 17-50; Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
5. Derek J. de Solla Price, 'The Science/Technology Relationship, the Craft of Experimental Science, and Policy for the Improvement of High Technology Invention', Research Policy, Vol. 14 (1984), 3-20.
6. Dorothea Jansen, 'Convergence of Basic and Applied Research? Research Orientations in German High-Temperature Superconductor Research', Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring 1995), 197-223, at 206.
7. See, for example, Diana E. Forsythe, 'Engineering Knowledge: The Construction of Knowledge in Artificial Intelligence', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 3 (August 1993), 445-77; and James Bryant Conant, Two Modes of Thought: My Encounters with Science and Education (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970).
8. See, for example, Diana E. Forsythe, 'Engineering Knowledge: The Construction of Knowledge in Artificial Intelligence', Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 3 (August 1993), 445-77; and James Bryant Conant, Two Modes of Thought: My Encounters with Science and Education (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970).
9. The classic definition, from the OECD's Frascati Manual, differentiates basic and applied research according to the different interests they pursue. Research and Development (R&D) is a term covering three activities: Basic Research, Applied Research and Experimental Development. . . . Basic Research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena as observable facts, without any particular application or use in view. Applied Research is also original investigation in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective. (OECD, The Measurement of Scientific and Technological Activities: Proposed Standard Practice for Surveys of Research and Experimental Development [The Frascati Manual] [Paris: OECD, 1994], 29.) Likewise, the Oslo Manual distinguishes between Research and Development (R&D), and the Technological Product and Process (TPP) innovative activities that comprise . . . . . . all those scientific, technological, organizational, financial and commercial steps which actually, or are intended to, lead to the implementation of technologically new or improved products or processes. Some may be innovative in their own right; others are not novel but necessary for implementation. (OECD, The Measurement of Scientific and Technological Activities: Proposed Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Technological Innovation Data [The Oslo Manual] [Paris: OECD, 1997), 19.)
10. The classic definition, from the OECD's Frascati Manual, differentiates basic and applied research according to the different interests they pursue. Research and Development (R&D) is a term covering three activities: Basic Research, Applied Research and Experimental Development. . . . Basic Research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena as observable facts, without any particular application or use in view. Applied Research is also original investigation in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective. (OECD, The Measurement of Scientific and Technological Activities: Proposed Standard Practice for Surveys of Research and Experimental Development [The Frascati Manual] [Paris: OECD, 1994], 29.) Likewise, the Oslo Manual distinguishes between Research and Development (R&D), and the Technological Product and Process (TPP) innovative activities that comprise . . . . . . all those scientific, technological, organizational, financial and commercial steps which actually, or are intended to, lead to the implementation of technologically new or improved products or processes. Some may be innovative in their own right; others are not novel but necessary for implementation. (OECD, The Measurement of Scientific and Technological Activities: Proposed Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Technological Innovation Data [The Oslo Manual] [Paris: OECD, 1997), 19.)
11. Harry Rothman, 'Between Science and Industry: The Human Genome Project and Instrumentalities', The Genetic Engineer & Biotechnologist, Vol. 14 (1994), 81-91, at 82.
12. See Hebe M.C. Vessuri, 'La ciencia académica en América Latina en el siglo XX', in Juan José Saldaña (coord.), Historia social de las ciencias en América Latina (México City: UNAM/Miguel Angel Porrua, 1996), 437-79.
13. H.M.C. Vessuri, 'El papel cambiante de la investigación cientifica académica en un pais periférico', in Elena Díaz, Yolanda Texera and Vessuri (eds), La ciencia periférica; Ciencia y sociedad en Venezuela (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1983), 37-62.
14. Ronald Kline, 'Construing "Technology" as "Applied Science": Public Rhetoric of Scientists and Engineers in the United States, 1880-1945', Isis, Vol. 86, No. 2 (June 1995), 194-221, at 198.
15. The history of computer science is very broad. We are only interested in it from the perspective of the distinction between basic, applied and technological research. For more general matters, see (among many other titles): Zenon Pylyshyn, Aitken, Babbage, Neuman: Perspectivas de la revolución de las computadoras (Madrid: Alianza Universidad, 1975); Rene Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware and the Software (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1984); Bernard Cohen, 'The Computer: A Case Study of Support by Government, Especially the Military, of a New Science and Technology', in Everett Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith and Peter Wiengart (eds), Science, Technology and the Military (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), 119-54; and Stephen G. Nash, A History of Scientific Computing (New York: ACM Press, 1990).
16. The history of computer science is very broad. We are only interested in it from the perspective of the distinction between basic, applied and technological research. For more general matters, see (among many other titles): Zenon Pylyshyn, Aitken, Babbage, Neuman: Perspectivas de la revolución de las computadoras (Madrid: Alianza Universidad, 1975); Rene Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware and the Software (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1984); Bernard Cohen, 'The Computer: A Case Study of Support by Government, Especially the Military, of a New Science and Technology', in Everett Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith and Peter Wiengart (eds), Science, Technology and the Military (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), 119-54; and Stephen G. Nash, A History of Scientific Computing (New York: ACM Press, 1990).
17. The history of computer science is very broad. We are only interested in it from the perspective of the distinction between basic, applied and technological research. For more general matters, see (among many other titles): Zenon Pylyshyn, Aitken, Babbage, Neuman: Perspectivas de la revolución de las computadoras (Madrid: Alianza Universidad, 1975); Rene Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware and the Software (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1984); Bernard Cohen, 'The Computer: A Case Study of Support by Government, Especially the Military, of a New Science and Technology', in Everett Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith and Peter Wiengart (eds), Science, Technology and the Military (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), 119-54; and Stephen G. Nash, A History of Scientific Computing (New York: ACM Press, 1990).
18. The history of computer science is very broad. We are only interested in it from the perspective of the distinction between basic, applied and technological research. For more general matters, see (among many other titles): Zenon Pylyshyn, Aitken, Babbage, Neuman: Perspectivas de la revolución de las computadoras (Madrid: Alianza Universidad, 1975); Rene Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware and the Software (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1984); Bernard Cohen, 'The Computer: A Case Study of Support by Government, Especially the Military, of a New Science and Technology', in Everett Mendelsohn, Merritt Roe Smith and Peter Wiengart (eds), Science, Technology and the Military (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988), 119-54; and Stephen G. Nash, A History of Scientific Computing (New York: ACM Press, 1990).
19. William Aspray and Bernard O. Williams, 'Arming American Scientists: NSF and the Provision of Scientific Computing Facilities for Universities, 1950-1973', IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter 1994), 60-74.
20. The IBM-650 computer had a dynamic bulb memory (magnetic drum) and a card reader and card punch. It had its own language, called BIQUINARIO, in addition to an assembler called SOAP (Symbolic Optimizer and Assembly Program), and a pseudo-compiler (macroassembler medium) called RUNCIBLE, as well as a BELL interpreter. See: Manuel Soriano and Christian Lemaitre, 'La era digital', Ciencia y Desarrollo,Vol. 60 (México City: CONACYT, 1985), 133-40, at 136.
21. Shortly thereafter, in 1961, the National Polytechnic Institute created the National Calculus Centre (CeNaC), with an IBM-709 computer. Despite the dynamism these two centres gave to academic computing nationwide, in 1972 there were only 18 computers for 156 Mexican universities and institutes of higher education: see Raymundo Segovia, Sidhu Gursharan and Cristina Loyo, 'Redes de computadoras', Ciencia y Desarrollo, Vol. 26 (1979), 10-19, at 16. Obviously, if we compare these numbers with the experience of countries such as the USA, the differences are remarkable: according to the well-known Rosser Report (1966), the USA in 1957 had 40 computer centres; by 1964, 400 were reported: Aspray & Williams, op. cit. note 11, 64.
22. Shortly thereafter, in 1961, the National Polytechnic Institute created the National Calculus Centre (CeNaC), with an IBM-709 computer. Despite the dynamism these two centres gave to academic computing nationwide, in 1972 there were only 18 computers for 156 Mexican universities and institutes of higher education: see Raymundo Segovia, Sidhu Gursharan and Cristina Loyo, 'Redes de computadoras', Ciencia y Desarrollo, Vol. 26 (1979), 10-19, at 16. Obviously, if we compare these numbers with the experience of countries such as the USA, the differences are remarkable: according to the well-known Rosser Report (1966), the USA in 1957 had 40 computer centres; by 1964, 400 were reported: Aspray & Williams, op. cit. note 11, 64.
23. The University researchers and students closest to the Centre were, among others, those at the Institute of Physics, at the School of Engineering, and at the School of Sciences.
24. The G-15 'was semi-transistorized, with a drum memory and [it had] the feature of short and long lines, having a total 2200 locations called words, each one with a capacity of nine hexadecimal characters; in addition, it had a magnetic tape, a reader and a paper punch, a typewriter [that] served as a console for entering and receiving instructions, [which] could be used for data, as well': Soriano & Lemaitre, op. cit. note 12, 135.
25. From very early on, although outside any formal organization, there were initiatives to teach computing at the University. Among those most remembered, due to the extraordinary professor who taught them, were the doctoral and undergraduate courses offered by Dr Alejandro Medina Plascencia to mathematics and physics students at the School of Sciences; Medina included in his courses topics related to computing, such as control theory, linear programming, automaton theory and artificial intelligence, among others. See: Christian Lemaitre, 'La computación en la UNAM en el periodo de 1968-1980: Una interpretación', in Memoria: Pasado, presente y futuro de la computación: 30 aniversario de la computación en México (México City: UNAM, 1988), 358-69, at 361. Subsequent to the master's degree programme that had been promoted by Beltrán, in 1970 another was created in computer sciences, based at CIMAS (and later, at IIMAS), within the programme of the Academic Unit of Professional Cycles and the Postgraduate Programme of the College of Sciences and Humanities, at UNAM, which continues to operate to this day.
26. Although we do not have precise data on the number of Mexican students who have studied computer science abroad, it is important to point out that many engineering and mathematics students joined the Centre and received support to pursue doctorates or specialized degrees abroad, in disciplines related to computer science.
27. Among the most important specialists who came into contact with the members of the Centre were: Alan Perlis; John Weber Carr III; Abe Chernes, a specialist in operations research; Dr Leon Cooper, an expert in computer science applied to administration; and Harold McIntoch. See: Gaceta UNAM, Vol. VI (24 August 1959), 3.
28. Rafael Durán Gonzalez, 'Décadas de cómputo en la UNAM', in Memoria, op. cit. note 16, 325-41, at 328.
29. Sergio Beltrán and Manny Lemann, among others, participated in designing it; Lemann temporarily joined CCE, after having participated in the Fourth Colloquium on electronic computers, held in 1962.
30. From its creation until 1970, the Centre only had appointments for administrative personnel; indeed, according to statistics provided by the University itself, its members were not counted as academics (either professors or researchers), but rather were considered within the UNAM's Area of Sciences, as administrative personnel. From 1965-67, only administrative appointments were made: 'professionals, specialists, administrators and workers', with 'specialized staff' as the largest group. 'Specialized staff' covered those persons who conducted 'specialized technical activity, such as laboratory workers, statistics graphers, filing clerks, card punchers, bookkeepers'. See: UNAM, Estadísticas del Personal Académico (México City: UNAM, 1967), 3.
31. As noted by Raymundo Bautista, it was not until the 1970s that the institutionalized development of CIMASS in applied mathematics and statistics (see below) could be considered to have begun: 'Applied mathematics, understood as the study of medium-scale phenomena, approachable through continuous models, began independently with the work of Ismael Herrera . . . in the 1970s': R. Bautista, 'Treinta años de investigación matemática en la UNAM', Ciencia: Revista de la academia de la investigatión científica,Vol. 45 (México City, 1994), 231-39, at 232.
32. Of all Mexican higher education centres, UNAM is the public university employing the greatest number of researchers. According to the 1991 OECD Review, of a total 27,105 scientists, engineers, technicians and supporting personnel working in Mexican public universities, 21.63% were in UNAM. In the same year, 10.28% of the 57,016 Mexicans dedicated to I&D activities worked in UNAM. See: OECD, Reviews of National Science and Technology Policy: México (unpublished report, OECD, México City, 1993), 21. And if we take into account that, in 1994, it was estimated that there were nine scientists and engineers for every ten thousand working Mexicans, the basic and applied research taking place in UNAM is of crucial importance. See: CONACYT, Estadísticas Básicas: Resultados de la actualizatión del Inventoria de investigatión y recursos dedicados a las actividades científicas y tecnológicas (México City: CONACYT, 1994), 115.
33. Of all Mexican higher education centres, UNAM is the public university employing the greatest number of researchers. According to the 1991 OECD Review, of a total 27,105 scientists, engineers, technicians and supporting personnel working in Mexican public universities, 21.63% were in UNAM. In the same year, 10.28% of the 57,016 Mexicans dedicated to I&D activities worked in UNAM. See: OECD, Reviews of National Science and Technology Policy: México (unpublished report, OECD, México City, 1993), 21. And if we take into account that, in 1994, it was estimated that there were nine scientists and engineers for every ten thousand working Mexicans, the basic and applied research taking place in UNAM is of crucial importance. See: CONACYT, Estadísticas Básicas: Resultados de la actualizatión del Inventoria de investigatión y recursos dedicados a las actividades científicas y tecnológicas (México City: CONACYT, 1994), 115.
34. As far back as 1961, at the offices of the University administration building, a Data Systemization Unit had been installed, where peripheral equipment was used exclusively for processing administrative information pertaining to the University: the payroll and scholastic data. These processes had until then been handled outside the Centre, 'due to the secrecy of university administrative information': Soriano & amp; Lemaitre, op. cit. note 12, 136.
35. The area of scientific research at UNAM was formally constituted in 1945, with the creation of the Technical Council on Scientific Research (CTIC): there was then an organization to coordinate the University's research institutes, of which there were nine at that time. In 1970, the Area of Sciences, now known as the 'Subsystem of Scientific Research' (SIC), had 12 institutes.
36. In that same year, 1970, the EPA was approved, by which the expression 'academic personnel' was for the first time included in the University's legislation to refer to the four categories under which University personnel conducting activities related to teaching and research are hired: professors (preferably those who teach at the facultades, or schools); researchers (those who work at research centres and institutes); academic technicians; and research assistants (who perform support work for researchers and professors). With the EPA's by-laws, which were modified in 1974 and 1975 (the latter version is still in force), it became possible to make definitive appointments for professors, researchers and academic technicians, in addition to appointing those belonging to the first two categories as career university personnel. On this topic, see: Susana García-Salord, Los académicos itinerantes de laberintos y escaleras: Estudio socioantropológico de un grupo de las clases a medias (unpublished PhD thesis, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM, 1996).
37. It appears that this situation was not confined to Mexico. In the 1940s, the project to create the first digital electronic computer, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) of John Paul Ekert and John Maclaug, was received with a certain indifference by established scientists interested in the development of practical computing methods. For this case, see, for example: Nancy Stern, 'The BINAC: A Case Study in the History of Technology', Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 1 (1979), 9-20. The history of Howard Aiken, another pioneer of computing, reveals a similar situation. According to Cohen (op. cit. note 10, 120-22):
38. [Aiken] was a real outsider and upstart, only a graduate student in a field of science, physics, far removed from any concern with inventing new machines for numerical calculation. He related that he had been told by the permanent tenured members of the Physics Department at Harvard that they had no interest in his proposed machine and would not give it any support, and he maintained that Harvard's President Conant had even told him that he would have no future at Harvard if he continued work on computing machines rather than doing more traditional work in electron physics.
39. Durán Gonzalez, op. cit. note 19, 330.
40. Jorge Gil Mendieta, Investigatión y desarrollo en el Departamento de Diseño de Sistemas Digitales (México City: unpublished mimeograph, 1976), 1-39, at 10. We found this document at the IIMAS Library.
41. Felipe Bracho, El hilo de la modernidad: Notas sobre informática en México y el caso de la UNAM (México City: IIMAS/UNAM, 1991), 30.
42. Jansen, op. cit. note 3, 221.
43. These were undergraduate students interested in computing and electronics who were paid for their work on the Centre's service projects. Indeed, many of them would eventually become researchers at the Centre.
44. Larissa Lomnitz and Susana García-Salord, 'Ambiguities and Discrepancies in the Criteria for Evaluating Technological Research in Mexico', in Les indicateurs de Science pour les pays en développement (Paris: Editions de l'ORSTOM, 1993), 115-24, at 117-18.
45. Another researcher, whose background was not in computer science, recalls: At one time I would go to the Computer Centre of INFONAVIT, at night, because some people from CIMASS, [who were] under contract, were in charge of the payroll of that Institute. Then, one day before INFONAVIT [made its] payments, there was urgent work: the programs didn't run and I was chosen to go supervise. I didn't know [anything] about payrolls, nor about COBOL (which was what programmed all of that), but they would send me to solve problems of INFONAVIT's payroll. It's funny. I remember that one of my colleagues said, 'How has a statistician like you been made responsible for seeing that INFONAVIT's payroll be finished on time?'
46. On this subject, see also Forsythe, op. cit. note 4, 456-59.
47. It is important to stress that perceptions of this differentiation between theoretical and instrumental work can only be explained by complex variables, both sociological and cultural ('values'): no doubt psychological factors also play a part. Thus Harry Rothman (op. cit. note 6, 85) points out that . . . . . . the asymmetry between the theoretician and experimentalists in science is rather bizarre when one considers their mutual interdependence. It is that experimentalists are less pure, proletarian rather than aristocratic, more likely to be tainted by the dirty world of production. No doubt there are many complex sociological and psychological factors at work.
48. At UNAM, the change in die Centre's status to an Institute was made when it was felt that there was a group that guaranteed continuity in the disciplines in which work was conducted, as well as faculty with a certain degree of maturity, and that the Centre had acquired sufficient equipment and facilities to allow for its academic evolution. These, among other criteria, were discussed with the Technical Council of Scientific Research, with the Internal Council of the Centre (that would become an Institute), and with the University Council (the University's highest authority). See: Coordinación de la Investigación Cientifica, La investigatión cientifica de la UNAM, 1929-1979, Vol. V (México City: UNAM, Tome I, 1987).
49. Bracho, op. cit. note 30, 27.
50. Ibid.
51. The number of academics grew from 42 in 1974 (32 researchers, 10 assistants and technicians), to 46 in 1975; in 1976, the number fell to 43. See: UNAM, Estadísticas del Personal Académico (México City: UNAM, 1975-77), 231.
52. Bautista, op. cit. note 22, 233.
53. Tomás Garza, 'Instituto de Investigaciones en Matematicas Aplicadas y en Sistemas', in Coordinacion, op. cit. note 36, Vol. II, 101-46, at 120.
54. Segovia, Gursharan & Loyo, op. cit. note 13, 18.
55. Armando Jinich, 'Percepción remota', Ciencia y Desarrollo, Vol. 26 (1979), 33-45.
56. Garza, op. cit. note 41, 120; Gil Mendieta, op. cit. note 29, 13.
57. Garza, op. cit. note 41, 120; Gil Mendieta, op. cit. note 29, 13.
58. Alejandro Velasco, 'Proyecto RAMSES', Ciencia y Desarrollo, Vol. 26 (1979), 20-28.
59. On this issue, Ronald Kline has already shown how American engineers originally constructed and defined their professional field in subordination to so-called basic science, hoping to eliminate the prejudiced association of engineering with art, and associate this applied field with 'science': Kline, op. cit. note 9, 220-21.
60. CTIC, Criterios y lineamientos para la evaluatión del Personal Académico de los Institutos y Centras de la Investigatión Científica, document approved by a Plenary Session of the Technical Council of Scientific Research, 31 August 1988 (México City: UNAM, 1988), 5.
61. Larry Davis, Mohamed Gouda, José Luis Marroquin and Hector García-Molina, Report of UNAM's External Computer Science Committee (México City: UNAM, 1990), 4.
62. Ibid.
63. This is but one example among many Nobel Prizes given to scientists whose contributions have been experimental and applied scientific inventions. Another case in point is scientists in the field of genetic engineering and molecular biology linked to the Human Genome Project (HGP). In 1980, Fred Sanger and Walter Gilbert received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their contribution to base sequencing in nucleic acid. In 1993, Kary Mullis received the Nobel Prize for inventing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique for DNA amplification. No doubt this recognition given to applied researchers confirms that their work is as valuable as that which provides more theoretical results. See Rothman, op. cit. note 6, 85.