Fundamental Science

Lubos has this post up on the debate over funding particle physics, and it's a typical Motl mix of insight and mischief, but I don't want to comment on that here yet. Instead I want to mention this question that his post drew in the comments from Rae Ann:
Have there been very many products of pure science that haven't eventually become applied and/or recreational?

A very good question with a "yes, but" answer. Fundamental science has a tendency to become important for applications, but sometimes the incubation time can be pretty long. The thirty-something year old standard model in physics might be considered recreational for students, but so far it doesn't seem to have had any important technological implications. General relativity took 70 years or so to become relevant for GPS. Electricity and magnetism took a few hundred years from the initial investigations before technological relevance (but much less time after Maxwell finished up the theory). I remember reading in a book by one of the early pioneers in molecular biology that "of course we would never be able to manipulate and change the genome."

My guess is that if a discovery really is fundamental, it will eventually have technological implications, but it might take a while.

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