[marcusverus]

They're correct in that the production of crude is not possible without the physics. It is a necessary input, ergo physics unlocks that economic activity.

It sounds like your concern is that all three fields of Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry could claim this output, which would be odd, because if every field did this, their combined 'value added' would be many times the total GDP, since their contributions overlap, like you mentioned. That doesn't matter, because we're not concerned about measuring the GDP with this method (if we were, we would have to divide credit like you mentioned) just the objective contribution of a single field.

[antoineMoPa]

Gravity keeps bank on the ground, thus physics funding is essential to the finance world. Imagine all banks floating away.

[haecceity]

Funny. More seriously though gravity would keep banks on the ground regardless if we study it or not. So physics research doesn't really contribute in this case :(

[ben509]

But we only know it does because of physics, and without knowing there isn't a risk of banks floating away, people would be afraid of building banks. And, of course, mechanics generally are what enable the analysis of large static loads.

Same issue with how studying life expectancy and mortality allows you to quantify the risk of death, injury and disease, thus enabling life insurance and health insurance.

The problem with the claim "this is all physics" is that, yes, Newton wrote down the original formulas for mechanics, but those had to be translated into all the engineering practices to be useful. Most of the economic value comes from engingeers who have mastered nth-order derivations of the original equations.

[solveit]

I really don't think people would be afraid of banks floating away, Newton or no.

[eru]

Just tether them with the blockchain?

[wenc]

I would argue that physicists themselves do not unlock this specific economic activity as they are rarely directly involved in crude extraction. As a field, it is too far removed. It would be like saying mathematicians are instrumental to crude extraction. Sure, they provide the scientific/theoretical basis for that work, but the actual execution is performed by engineers and various other applied experts.

Unlike what most people think, engineering is only partly based on physical/mathematical models. In fact, much of engineering is based on heuristics and empirical knowledge/know-how, and some of this knowledge isn't quantitative and it's not in the province of most physicists.

The difference between physics and engineering is actually quite vast.

I think the economic activity referred to in the article is around large-scale physics activities by organizations like CERN.

[LudwigNagasena]

By that logic retail and financial services could claim the same output. All of these physicists and companies have to use them to survive in the modern world.

[marcusverus]

Yup. Every field that is a necessary input. Of course, physics could count every company that produced oil, whereas financial services could only count the specific activities that were financed. Giving Exxon a loan for a new office building does not mean you get credit for all of their oil production revenues.

[airstrike]

Capital markets and banks fund every single project undertaken by public companies. The only other alternative is private funding, but in which case it's still financing and investors objectively get credit for it – it's why they get rewarded!

This exercise is completely pointless. At best, it serves to show people's biases.

[marcusverus]

Physics unlocks oil production in that it is an absolute prerequisite. Debt funding isn't an absolute prerequisite, just the preferred funding approach.

This exercise provides valuable data, for example would you rather government research dollars go toward academic research into Chemical Engineering, Physics, or Aerospace? Data from this sort of study can inform that sort of decision.

[airstrike]

> Debt funding isn't an absolute prerequisite, just the preferred funding approach.

Right, but I'm not arguing the Oil & Gas industry depends on debt funding. I'm arguing it depends on funding, period. And that funding is obtained through capital markets, generally, which includes equity raises as well. Even in private markets, someone will be performing valuation on the potential project and calculating expected returns, which will drive the decision on whether to extract the oil – and whether it's done today or in the future.

You need funding even to do basic research, so organizing all of that is a key aspect of the process, just as managing these businesses is.

> This exercise provides valuable data

Does it? That seems like an assumption. It attempts to provide valuable data, but some of us are arguing it doesn't. It could be garbage in, garbage out. Bad data is worse than no data.

> would you rather government research dollars go toward academic research into Chemical Engineering, Physics, or Aerospace?

I think this is a pretty limited framework for making such big decisions. I'd prefer deep research into each of these industries with qualitative discussion on which are the most promising ones for the next 25-50 years, an analysis of what other governments are doing, what is best covered by the private sector, what is the best form of government investment, and the expected return on any of these investments. Anything else is just too shortsighted.

[walterstucco666]

Ancient populations were digging holes in the ground before physics was invented.