ABSTRACT
Knowledge is polyvalent, imbued with multiple simultaneous characteristics (Viale and Etzkowitz 2005). It is at one and the same time theoretical and practical, publishable and patentable. Hybridization among institutional spheres is also driven by the diminishing gap between ‘blue sky’ theoretical knowledge and practical ‘knowledge for use’. The so-called ‘Pasteur’s Quadrant’ exemplifies knowledge that is simultaneously theoretical and practical (Stokes 1998). Bohr’s ‘pure basic research’ quadrant actually contains significant elements of Edison’s ‘pure applied research’ quadrant, as the economic potential of basic research and the scientization of invention are realized. These two individuals themselves are actually good examples of the increasingly conjoint nature of knowledge. Bohr was not an isolated theorist but was also directly involved in the effort to control the deleterious consequences of technology. He personally lobbied US Secretary of State James Byrne not to use the atomic bomb against Japan and hold a demonstration of its power instead. He was also one of the founders of the scientists’ movement to control atomic weapons. Edison, the self-styled ‘cut and try’ inventor, employed scientists on his staff and was the discoverer of the ‘Edison effect’, an eponymous physical phenomenon. The polyvalent nature of academic knowledge became temporarily hidden in an ‘ivory tower’ academic model that emerged in the late nineteenth century but is now exploding in a variety of formats (Shapin 2008).
