[rn222]

Add that to the fact there is no global dependency tree of "What we need to discover to make this practical technology possible", how can we be sure that existing/future research funds are focused in the areas needed to make the most valuable technologies available?

[CountSessine]

Is that why we're doing physics research? Practical technology?

[marcosdumay]

Isn't it?

Understanding things is certainly great, but you can't even claim you understand something new if you can not use that new understanding to achieve something you couldn't before it.

Or, more clearly, pure theory is good for mathematicians, but scientists can not even claim a theory is new if it has no application.

[CountSessine]

Isn't it?

It's certainly not what I'm expecting. Even if it hadn't gone on to be central to our engineering, I would have liked to have known about general relativity or QCD.

Understanding things is certainly great, but you can't even claim you understand something new if you can not use that new understanding to achieve something you couldn't before it.

What do you mean by understand something new? This week we started to understand something new - understand many things new - about Pluto. Are you trying to claim that this isn't true unless we can use it somehow? What is it you're trying to say?

Or, more clearly, pure theory is good for mathematicians, but scientists can not even claim a theory is new if it has no application.

Is astronomy not a science? Or palaeontology? Or archaeology? Those are all observation-oriented sciences that don't conduct experiments but do gather information and develop knowledge.

I have no idea what it is you're trying to say about claim a theory is new - do you want to rephrase that? What would you say about the recent discover of pentaquarks? Pentaquarks are useless, but our knowledge of them is quite new.