Originally Posted by Bostonian
Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
That same crass approach ultimately dries up innovation in the sciences (and by extension, later technology transfer) as well, because it only looks at relative simplistic/short-term cost-benefit and risk analysis. Basic research? Who needs it! All just a waste of money and resources. Those people should be making better widgets and at lower cost...
Is it possible that in some subjects, basic research has reached a point of diminishing returns? At Harvard the the very smartest physics majors went on to become string theorists (string theory is a branch of particle physics theory). There are smart people who think string theory is a dead end, and it has not yielded physical predictions. Even if it did, would it matter? The atomic theory of matter had profound consequences, but has the theory of quarks done so? I wonder if support for research in pure math also draws the brightest people away from productive endeavors.

Well, this is an easy thing to fix.

We should stop throwing away those bright children as third graders and then maybe there would be plenty of them to go around and the engineering and math and sociology fields could all have a few of them. wink


PS. As far as I can tell, quantum pairing and some elements of string theory are an area of active (and ultimately practical) research which is being supported for what it may mean for quantum computing. Eventually. smile

Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.