[bilbo0s]

???

Wouldn't it be better for mankind ... if as many people like these kids as possible pursued math and science more vigorously ??? Especially kids like these, who have what I would term "creative" intelligence.

Why would we want those people in law ??? That gives us far less than having them in math and science. And we will get the MOST by having them in art AND math and science. Then we'd really get their creativity going as they look for solutions to problems.

[archlight]

American and Chinese education learns to balance each other for the average students. for the ultra smart,they do what they are good at. when I was at high school in china, I can solve complex algebra and geometry problem which I don't know how I did that today. I never thought public speaking or organisation skill etc is skill. I have the wrong belief like how you can talk about it if you are not expert of it. now in china people already start to reduce difficulties of maths problem in exam and pay a bit more attention on soft skill. in US, people might think to equip american kids with more math skill so that in future they can embrace more discipline. one example i see good programmers not willing to do computer graphics because they are worried about their math skills. maybe that is why post like maths you need to know for programming is popular

[Retric]

IMO, high level Math and Science is generally a waste of a lot of really smart peoples time. The LHC for example is studying particle energy's so far outside of 'reasonable' that we are not going to get useful technology from there. The same is true of a lot of esoteric Math which mostly ends up divorced from anything actually useful.

That's not to say funding such things is necessarily a waste, just the focus on STEM education may be excessive. Russia for example ended up with a lot of highly educated security guards.

[gus_massa]

The standard example of unexpected esoteric physic application is the Special and General Relativity corrections of the GPS. 100 years ago nobody thought that we would ever use that small correction or that everybody would have a special-and-general-aware device in the pocket.

Another cool application is the superconductors in the NMR devices. They can see what is inside your head and even do something equivalent to a chemical analysis (with NRM spectroscopy) without opening it. The first superconductors experiments used Helium at 4K, so they were only a laboratory curiosity.

For everyday use, I like the giant magnetoresistance. This is my favorite case to explain that strange quantum effects have real world direct applications. Just start talking about the spin in electrons. Then explain that some magnetic conductors have a different value of the current with spin up and the currents with spin down. Then add the sandwich with non-magnetic conductors. At this moment it looks like a weird laboratory experiment. Then suddenly explain how it is used in hard disks heads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_magnetoresistance

[Retric]

<Playing the devils advocate.>

Don't get me wrong, QM for example was ridiculously useful. But, pointing to past and saying these tiny particle accelerators where useful let's make a multi billion dollar one feels like cargo cult science for the lack of a better phrase. We just keep piling higher and deeper without a clear reason to do so other than we can afford to do so.

String theory is another example where lot's of effort from seemingly smart people with no practical basis.

Dumping all of LHC's money into say a large ITER style fusion project would have also been cutting edge, but there would have at least had the possibility of useful results. Hell, even ISS would qualify as vaguely useful.

How about a self sustaining bio-dome in Antarctica. Now that's probably harder and possibly more expensive, but would have real useful applications if we ever want to try and colonize Mars.

PS: Not that the 13+Billion for the LHC was all that expensive, but there are a lot of similar projects out there.

[pervycreeper]

GH Hardy famously predicted that elementary number theory would have no practical applications. Lo and behold, today it is an indispensable part of web cryptography used by hundreds of millions every day. Waiting on the order of decades for a ROI on fundamental research is simply part of the game. I suspect the point where we experience diminishing returns from this is much to far in the future to even consider the question.

[Retric]

Elementary number theory is the opposite of what I am talking about. RSA is from the kiddie pool of that field.

Consider, we know the first five digits of the gravitational constant. So, while it might seem like the diminishing returns are a long way off. Yet, each extra digit becomes exponentially more expensive and less useful. So, actually learning g out just 9 digits is probably a huge waste of resources.

Or in the words of a physicist, in 1920 second rate physicists where doing first rate research. Now, first rate physicistare doing second rate research.

[pervycreeper]

>Elementary number theory is the opposite of what I am talking about.

In number theory, what's considered 'elementary' now was cutting edge in the times of Diophantus, all the way to Fermat, to Euler, to Gauss (etc). The fact that children are now routinely conversant in it, I think, is another point in favor of the importance of making such discoveries in the first place.

My point is that applications that were never envisioned for these (at the time) centuries-old-facts, are now commonplace and indispensable.

I think that there is a bit of survivorship bias that warps our understanding of old science. We remember only the great discoveries because those are the most likely to be republished and read.

Also, in the case of math, it is my impression that an amazing amount of very significant progress is being made in the present era.

[deanmen]

Relativity is not a good example since we could still discover the correction empirically and program it into GPS receivers without having a theory of relativity. (i.e. the corrections are just "these weird numbers that you add to make the results come out right").

[charlesray]

I agree. It seems no one is capable of saying that math and science are extremely important while also admitting that advanced math and science are actually not used in the day-to-day lives of most adults. Why is that so hard?