Opinion: We must not limit the scope of scientific research
The Guardian: Martin Rees responds to former UK science adviser David King's suggestion that the UK should cut back on space research and basic physics in order to focus on more immediate issues such as climate change. Such a shift in research would be misguided says Rees.
But it is mistaken to claim that global problems will be solved more quickly if only researchers would abandon their quest to understand the universe and knuckle down to work on an agenda of public or political concerns. These are not "either/or" options – indeed, there is a positive symbiosis between them.We need basic, fundamental research for a whole raft of reasons. It is the bedrock on which technology is based. But its applications can't be foreseen, even by the pioneers who open up new fields – not even by people of the calibre of great pioneers like Faraday or Rutherford.
Comments
As a U.S. citizen, I fully support our friends of the U.K. doing more basic scientific research. I feel the same way regarding my fellow Americans. Quite frankly, I was depressed for several days when I heard that the Super Conducting Super Collider project was canceled. The accelerator would have produced collision energy a half of an order of magnitude than the LHC will when it is finally ramped up to full collision energy for research.
What can come out of basic fundamental physics research?, well perhaps just as the unification of electric and magnetic fields in Maxwell's equations brought about electrical generators, radio, microwave telecommunications, and electric motors, so might a unification of gravity and electromagnetism, a unification that even the great Einstein believed was possible although his attempts at such failed.
The discovery of the Higgs Boson(s) or additional nuclear forces at the LHC could lead to the development of new technology with unforeseen benefits.
With fundamental physics research, the possibilities are endless. Let us not shrink from asking the what if questions even when the modern scientific establishment in general scoffs at these questions as ridiculous. Remember, they scoffed Einstein, but now his findings are routinely used in the accelerators such as the design of the LHC, the production of nuclear energy, the modern observational techniques of astronomy and experimental cosmology etc.
Posted by: James M. Essig | September 18, 2008 11:52 PM