SELWYN FUND
RALPH LANDAU
19 may 1916–6 april 2004
PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
VOL. 150, NO. 1, MARCH 2006
biographical memoirs
R
ALPH LANDAU received his doctorate in chemical engineering from MIT in 1941; two years later he received an assignment to work on the Manhattan Project, where he was
responsible for the design of equipment to produce fluorine for use in
the manufacture of uranium hexafluoride. This was the starting point
for the production of Uranium 235 for the first atomic bomb. This
experience provided Landau’s initial exposure to applications of chemical engineering to problems of war and peace and the larger economy.
In 1946 Landau and Harry Rehnberg, a construction engineer in
charge of the fluorine unit Landau had designed, formed Scientific
Design Company. The company developed new chemical processing
technology for licensing to petrochemical firms. The company’s first
success was a direct air reduction process for producing ethylene oxide,
a key ingredient in antifreeze. This was followed a few years later by
the bromine-assisted oxidation process for terephthalic acid, the main
raw material for polyester fiber. The company licensed its technologies
to major chemical companies in Britain, France, Holland, Germany,
and the United States.
During the following decades Scientific Design and its successor
companies, Halcon International and Halcon-SD Group, eventually
worked in thirty countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and in the Soviet Union and Australia. Scientific Design patented and licensed its processes, engineered and constructed plants,
and manufactured proprietary catalysts. The broad scale and international scope of these activities foreshadowed the globalization of the
chemical industry that has subsequently taken place.
In 1962 Landau and Rehnberg discovered a process for producing
high yields of propylene oxide, a constituent of polyurethane foams
and rigid polymers widely used in manufacturing. To exploit this new
technology the company was reorganized in 1963 to form Halcon
International. Upon Rehnberg’s death in 1975, Landau become chairman and chief executive officer. Four other subsidiaries were formed to
manufacture chemicals, provide computerized engineering services, conduct research and development, and manufacture proprietary catalysts.
The newly formed companies found a manufacturing partner in the
Atlantic Richfield Company, which had recently started a chemical
company but lacked technology. Under the name of Oxirane the partnership built and operated five plants based on the new technology. By
1978 these plants had sales exceeding $1 billion per year. However, the
high interest rates that accompanied Paul Volcker’s tenure as chairman
of the Federal Reserve Board ultimately forced Halcon to sell its share
in Oxirane to Atlantic Richfield. Landau liquidated his remaining business interests over the period 1980–84.
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The entrepreneurial spirit that inspired and guided Landau’s business career involved the exercise of creativity to bring together people,
money, markets, production facilities, and technology to generate a
profitable commercial enterprise. Landau’s personal creativity is evident
in the enormous range of new technologies he developed and brought
to commercial implementation. It is also evident in the ingenious financial arrangements that he designed to exploit his chemical discoveries.
Landau received more than fifty awards for his contributions to the
chemical industry and the chemical engineering profession. He was
awarded the Chemical Industry Medal by the Society of Chemical
Industry in 1973 and the Society’s Perkin Medal in 1981. He received
the Founders’ Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 1982. Five engineering societies awarded Landau the John
Fritz Medal in 1986. In 1997 he received the first Othmer Gold Medal
of the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
Landau was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in
1972 and cited, specifically, for his activities in chemical process licensing. He was among the first group awarded the National Medal of
Technology by President Ronald Reagan in 1985. He served as vice
president of the National Academy of Engineering and received the
Founders’ Award of the Academy in 1994. In 1996 Landau was elected
to the American Philosophical Society. In 2003 he received the Lifetime
Achievement Award in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the Haas
School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Shortly after the sale of Halcon, Landau joined the faculty of Stanford University as consulting professor of economics and chemical
engineering. He also co-directed the Program on Technology and Economic Growth at Stanford’s Center for Economic Policy Research. In
1984 he was appointed fellow of the faculty at the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University, where he co-directed the Program
on Technology and Economic Policy.
In 1991 Landau joined George Hatsopoulos, a fellow member of
the National Academy of Engineering, and myself in proposing the
establishment of a Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy
(STEP) within the National Research Council. This was approved by
the Governing Board of the Academies and Landau was appointed as
one of the first members. He played a central role in the STEP Board
project that led to the volume U.S. Industry 2000. He helped to organize
a conference on the revival of America’s industrial performance, based
on a comparison of more than a dozen industries by teams of experts.
Landau’s entrepreneurial spirit animated his efforts to promote
communication between technology and economics through the National
Academy of Engineering, the National Research Council, and the pro-
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biographical memoirs
grams he directed at Stanford and Harvard. In all of these organizations
he was instrumental in promoting effective communication among academics, business leaders, and policy makers concerned with the economics of technology and technology policy. His experience as a technologist
led him to formulate a concept of technology as capital and to focus on
intellectual property and its protection. These ideas carried over directly
to his research program in the economics of technology.
After turning his full attention to economics in the early 1980s,
Landau compiled a remarkable publication record. Altogether he wrote
more than 130 papers and published 7 books on technology and economics. A selection of his papers was included in his volume, Uncaging
Animal Spirits, published by the MIT Press in 1994. His work in economics was motivated by the goal of fostering communication between
the economist and the technologist.
Landau organized a series of conferences at Harvard and Stanford
linking economics and technology. We collaborated on three edited
volumes growing out of the Harvard conferences. Our volume on Technology and Capital Formation, published by the MIT Press in 1989,
focused on investment in computers. This topic has greatly increased
in importance and has become the focus of a major program, “Measuring and Sustaining the New Economy,” at the STEP Board.
Our volume on Tax Reform and the Cost of Capital, published by
Brookings in 1993, provided a quantitative comparison of fundamental tax reforms in industrialized countries during the 1980s. The focus
of these reforms was broadening the tax base and lowering tax rates;
an important consequence was a great “leveling of the playing field”
by equalizing effective rates of taxation of different assets. In the United
States the Tax Reform Act of 1986 exemplified this approach.
Landau edited two volumes with Nathan Rosenberg of Stanford.
Their initial volume, The Positive Sum Strategy: Harnessing Technology for Economic Growth, was published by the National Academy
Press in 1986. Their second volume, Technology and the Wealth of
Nations, was co-edited with David Mowery and published by the Stanford University Press in 1992. These volumes provide a comprehensive
survey of the economics of technology, the management of technology,
and technology policy. Finally, Landau edited a volume with Timothy
Taylor and Gavin Wright, Mosaic of Economic Growth, published by
the Stanford University Press in 1996, surveying current research on
economic growth.
The economics of the chemical industry was one of Landau’s most
important professional interests. His initial efforts documented the globalization of the industry through diffusion of technology. He became
a public spokesman for the industry when he was elected as a Council
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member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1973. He participated in a series of studies by the National Academy dealing with the economics of technology and testified before Congress on tax policy issues.
Landau’s contribution to his volume with Mowery and Rosenberg
described the determinants of successful commercialization of new
technology in the chemical industry. This became the point of departure for a six-year research project on the economics and economic history of the chemical industry. The results were published by John
Wiley in his book Chemicals and Long-Term Growth in 1998. This
volume will be the definitive study of the economics of technology in
the chemical industry for many years to come.
The core of Landau’s study of the chemical industry is the economics of innovation. The study extends over 150 years and covers four
leading countries: Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States. The
coverage includes the leading firms within each country and surveys
the evolution of corporate capability as well as corporate strategy. This
wealth of detail is integrated into an overview of the structure and performance of the industry. Finally, the development of the industry is
viewed within the social, political, and legal framework of each country.
Landau completed a parallel project on Pharmaceutical Innovation
in 1999. This provided a long-term perspective on the development of
the pharmaceutical industry in all the leading countries. Like the chemical industry, the pharmaceutical industry employs science as a basis
for new technology. Landau’s concept of technology as capital plays a
central role in his studies of both industries. Legal institutions for
establishing and protecting intellectual property rights occupy a prominent place in the history of the development of these industries.
Landau’s studies of the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical
industry are his intellectual legacy in the economics of technology.
These books draw on a lifetime of practical experience and are addressed
to both technical and non-technical audiences. They will remain as monuments to Landau’s remarkable ability to initiate and conduct
research, integrate the efforts of scholars from a variety of disciplines,
and communicate the results to a broad audience.
A Chemical Engineering Practice School Fund has been established
at MIT in remembrance of Ralph Landau.
Elected 1996
Dale W. Jorgenson
Samuel W. Morris University Professor
Harvard University