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Re: how to judge creative ideas (was: barometer parable)

Hey let's put John in charge of research funding. We can shut down Fermi
Lab, all observatories including the Hubble, and most University labs. We
can then move all the money into applied research and try to come up with
technology that uses currently known science. After that, we're pretty much
SOL unless someone can divine both 'new' science and its practical
application all at once! [I think John's last statement is wrong...at least
in terms of monies spent. Seems that most of the expensive projects have
virtually NO short-term (or even a perceived long-term) 'practical' benefit
other than to satisfy our quest to understand!]

;-)

Rick

*************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

FREE PHYSICS INSTRUCTIONAL SOFTWARE
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
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----- Original Message -----
From: "John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>

That's not quite what I said.
-- Ideally you want prompt _and_ enduring impact.
-- You can do OK if you have a prompt but temporary impact,
if the impact is big enough while it lasts.
-- If the impact is long delayed, being long enduring won't
save it, unless the magnitude is astonishingly large.
Those exponential discount factors are brutal.

I would say that all basic research has long-enduring impact

I've seen lots of long-enduring worthlessness.

and I view this a very good.

I strongly disagree.

... John seems to downplay
this type of incredible impact because anybody can use it to justify
just
about any kind of research.

Yes, that's one of the big reasons why I object.

I admit I can be somewhat arrogant and state
that basic physics research is more likely to lead to unanticipated
magnificent impacts compared to a study of the nesting habits of some
obscure bird. But then I remind myself that some people think the
nesting
habit study is very interesting, and if they want to pursue that, and
even
manage to get some funding for it, then more power to them.

It would be incredibly arrogant to say that just because
I'm interested in XYZ, the taxpayers should fund me to
study XYZ.

Physics generally has a better track record than many of
the "soft science" or "engineering" fields as measured
by uncitedness
http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/hamilton2.html
(which is of course an imperfect way of measuring things).

But I claim that is because a goodly number of physicists
over the years have not adopted the supercilious approach
Prof. E. seems to be advocating, but rather they have chosen
to work on things that have a fair chance of being useful
on a realistic timescale.