Here’s a short video that a reader sent me in which Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the importance of pure research, i.e., theoretical scientific research, normally in physics, performed without an eye towards the development of anything of purpose.
He pointed out that one of Einstein’s equations laid the groundwork for the laser, which eventually became the technology by which we scan our UPC codes when we buy our consumer products, although Einstein (obviously) wasn’t contemplating that at the time.
It’s an interesting topic, to be sure. In 2011, I interviewed Dr. Martin Perl, an aging genius who, at the time, was running the Stanford Linear Accelerator, after having won the Nobel Prize in physics for discovering an elementary particle, the tau lepton.
I happened to ask him about the practical application of his life’s work, and he told me flatly, “There is none.”
I was stunned, and I immediately began to stammer to correct my mistake, ” Oh, let me ask this a different way. Isn’t there a chance that something you and your graduate students are doing could eventually have some sort of practical implication?” He replied, again to my astonishment, “Not one in a million.”
Hey, I’m not a particle physicist, so I’m not in a position to argue, but it does seem a bit weird that what we’re learning about the core components of the universe couldn’t possibly have some future application in our lives.
Here’s a very short video on the subject of metaphysics, the philosophy of being and reality.
It’s a great example of what I mean when I say that it has been a terrible last few centuries for philosophers.
In ancient times, if you wanted to know what the fundamental building blocks of the universe, you asked a philosopher, perhaps the ancient Athenian Democritus, who propounded the theory of the atom, which was, by definition, indivisible. Now we refer this question to the realm of particle physics.
Far more recently, those who struggled to know the ultimate nature of reality asked a metaphysician. Now, once again, we’ve put our trust in science.
I hope you’ll check out the video linked above.
As a PhD colleague once told me, “If you don’t care how much of pay for electricity, I’ll get you all the renewable energy you could ever ask for.”
They want you to invest. Have you ever asked why people with their own money at stake have abandoned these ideas 20 years ago?
At left we see why Lincoln would have done well to let the Confederacy cede from the Union. He could have simply written a letter to Robert E. Lee stating:
Keep your slaves and your land…for now. Wait until you experience the effects of near-zero industrial and military technology development and the civilized world’s refusal to trade with you barbarians. By the end of the 19th Century, a stiff breeze will blow you away. Maybe some future U.S. president will invade you with a troop of Boy Scouts with slingshots, or maybe a handful of banditos will ride up from Mexico.
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