Why Did Bell Labs Line Every Lab Down One Hall?

Eric Betzig says Bell Labs turned out 12 Nobel Prizes from one institution because scientists were left to do science all the time. Shannon worked that way. Hamming worked that way. Bell refused separate chemistry, physics, and mathematics departments, because advances happen at the interface between disciplines.

In the physical research division where Eric Betzig worked, 100 PIs were all called members of technical staff. A new hire and a Nobel Prize winner faced the same limit: one postdoc and one technician. Empires were banned, so people collaborated. Everyone shared one corridor of a massive building, labs on both sides of one straight line. Lunch meant walking past 50 other people, and the chance meetings going to lunch or in the lunchroom were what made the place work.

Eric Betzig and a colleague came in at four in the morning, fought for the first parking spot, worked until the sun rose, played tennis, worked until six, ate at the same Chinese restaurant two blocks away, and worked until ten, seven days a week. During tennis, dinner, and sleep, the subconscious kept turning the day over, and the answers popped up out of nowhere.