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by DougMerritt
4504 days ago
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Good way of putting it so that people can understand. Feynman was a scientist, not an engineer, so that's a clue that the Manhattan project involved science, not just engineering. The same is true of fusion research. That's why it's "research", not merely "development". In particular, the physics of plasma instabilities has always been quite imperfectly understood, and that has been one of the key problems with controlled fusion since the 1950s. |
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Science is about understanding, engineering is about building something.
If the Manhattan project had resulted in no new understanding, but had created a nuclear bomb it would have been a success. The science was incidental to the success of the project.
Engineering is built on science so there will often be scientists involved in Engineering projects, however the assumption with an Engineering project is that the science is already understood (or at least significantly understood) and so the main effort is in the design and construction.
The problem with Science projects is that they are hard to sell to the public. Thats because its hard for someone who isn't a domain expert to put a value on its significance. This is why a lot of Science projects are dressed up as Engineering projects[1] to sell them to the public.
Its pretty clear that the above fusion research is a Science project, i.e about understanding.
If this facility is being used to produce new bombs then that is an engineering project but if it is just being used to gain understanding about existing bombs then its science.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Love_of_music
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative