Of of course others of my ilk have been ‘fragged ‘ by strangelets

W.Winkworth MIET

I did a quick straw poll around the office after we spoke, and everybody said the same thing: 1) Because we can, and should push the boundaries of our scientific understanding 2) Spin-off technologies/understanding.

I personally like the story of Euclid’s student. When trying to understand tricky geometry concept, the student asked Euclid what would he profit from understanding the problem. Euclid stood there angrily, threw a coin at the student and told him “Now you have profited from todays lesson, leave”.

I suspect Euclid’s argument will only really appeal to the converted, so I’ll resort to a more pragmatic argument. There are policies/schemes/industries that waste far more money that fundamental research projects ever could. So before you drop the LHC project for the sake of 10 billion Euros (saved over all CERN member states), why not cut the EU budget/Defense Spending/Northern Rock bail out (or whatever particular political initiative you feel opposed to!) by 5% – I’m sure you would save a lot more money!

Given, as you say, that these sums could be very well spent on issues far closer to home for most people (would we really spend it altruistically though?), I’m never sure the spin-offs are necessarily the key: you’re arguing funding sth on the grounds that it may incidentally produce sth useful. What I don’t like about that argument is that to me, it always seems a lot cheaper, and more efficient to me to fund a lot of engineers – say “here’s some money, think about sth which might be useful”.

Although the research helps create problems which then have to be solved creatively – a breeding ground for spin-offs – I’m not sure that given a tiny fraction of the money going to the whole physics project, you can’t fund your way “outwards” towards discovering new and better technical solutions.

That turns the funding on its head – put spin-offs at the centre, as the end goal – if one uses them to justify the research (you join most physicists in doing this!) they must be the most important element, no? Hence we should go towards them in the most efficient way possible)

Relying too heavily on possible serendipity seems risky to me – if you don’t come up with the goods, or your research is purely blue-skies, this argument leaves room for politicians to undercut you, slash your budget! Vide the recent STFC debacle…

That said, I’m a firm believer that the goal of these experiments is to further our knowledge – that’s the key point – and that the spin-offs are an attractive aside. Which pragmatically, yes, can be used as the justification for the research. And that, though exploring “outwards” may be cheaper, really you have to be foraging in the wilderness to discover worthwhile solutions you can build a spin-off on – if you stick in the “safe” zone you’ll never discover many. No matter how much money you throw at the engineers, there’s a risk that the spin-off equivalent of Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns remain just that – a well-funded flight of fancy is never as focussed as a mind trouble-shooting a concrete problem.

I also think one spin-off, which rarely gets the press it deserves, as it’s intangible, is the effect of this knowledge on society. Ignoring the benefits of having a scientifically literate society at large – too hard to quantify – I nevertheless think the case can be made if we focus on the children. Tackling the big questions, like the particle physicists or the cosmologists do, engages with the young public’s imagination far more than any other more ‘mundane’ areas of physics, even though the latter may have a far greater impact on society. Show me a child (before the age of seven, of course!) who, upon looking into the box of magic that is a mobile phone, is inspired to go into science/engineering because of that, and I bet I can find you hundreds who’ll go down the same route because they’ve seen that famous Hubble image of the Eagle nebula, and in trying to conceive of clouds of gas light years across, the birthplace of stars, have been awestruck. Despite being at least as abstract as the phone, and clearly of far lesser importance to our daily life, it’s the concepts far beyond which draw in the future generations of engineers, so vital to our economies, as well as the scientists. Granted, most of them will decide that such matters are too abstract for their liking, and that they prefer to focus on more practical issues, but it’s precisely this that makes the “big science” worthwhile! They nurture the younger minds, and provide the entry point to the science and engineering arena – though they’re “lossy” disciplines themselves, they’re net providers, as chances are that a child inspired in this manner will retain an interest in science and engineering, and may well follow a career in the area.

‘Nuff said – except, of course, good entry!
E

But the real question is the one that you fudge on at the end. Cui bono?
Should not the research be paid for by those who stand to gain from it’s results?

… also, what the hell is that smiley face doing at the bottom of this site?