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Here is an incomplete list of things that it's impossible to research in industry: 1. Astronomy. 2. Physics. 3. Geophysics concerning the parts of the Earth

Here is an incomplete list of things that it's impossible to research in industry: 1. Astronomy. 2. Physics. 3. Geophysics concerning the parts of the Earth deeper than the crust. 4. Biology aside from medicine. 5. Chemistry aside from industrial chemistry. 6. Theoretical computer science. 7. Mathematics. I'm not blaming you for not knowing this, but I am holding my head in my hands - how can people not know about astronomers? They've been a part of our culture and the prestige of civilization for thousands of years.

naasking 1y ago
> Astronomy. What benefits do you expect to see from the kinds astronomy that require this sort of funding? Sure, knowing things can be nice but this ignores opportunity costs, eg. would practical knowledge like fusion research be further along if talent weren't focused on impractical knowledge? > Physics. Not strictly true, see quantum computing for instance, lasers, semiconductors and so on. There are some types of physics that aren't viable in this sense, but why does that automatically translate into some need to support them? For instance, consider the decades spent on supersymmetry which ultimately produced bupkis. In a world in which we weren't so focused on ideas so divorced from empirical data, what other types of knowledge or engineering would we have done? > Geophysics concerning the parts of the Earth deeper than the crust. What benefits do you expect to see? > Biology aside from medicine. Such as? What benefits do you expect to see? > Chemistry aside from industrial chemistry. Such as? What benefits do you expect to see? > Theoretical computer science. Untrue, Google and Facebook have advance distributed computing considerably, for instance. > Mathematics. Unclear, there's a lot of math involved in predictions of all sorts, like weather forecasting, stock market prediction. If your argument here is that math will be more application-focused, this strikes me much like the physics objection where it's unclear that we'd really be worse off. There seems to be this automatic assumption among some people that pure research with no direction or constraints is an unmitigated good and that we can't do better. I used to think so too, but I just don't see it anymore.
- hnaccount_rng 1y ago
  Basically none of modern optics would exist without astronomy (well at least astronomy is a convenient cover for military/intelligence interests funding better optics). Most of statistics and efficient cameras originate in astronomy/astrophysics (mostly because you have to count all the photons and you are never getting a second relevant measurement point) There are huge parts of physics which are only publicly funded. Results are often spun out into companies, but there is no institution that can fund experiments that require timelines of multiple decades (even things like fusion power is nearly completely government funds) And those are the only two parts where I actually have some competence. So yeah.. I wouldn't buy
  - naasking 1y ago
    > well at least astronomy is a convenient cover for military/intelligence interests funding better optics Right, defense can and has funded research for its own purposes, and sometimes those purposes can find wider commercial application (like the internet). That's all great, national defense is one of the government's primary purposes. > There are huge parts of physics which are only publicly funded. Yes, and? Is this an argument that they cannot be funded in other ways, or an argument that the parts of physics that cannot be funded in any other way ought to be publicly funded? There's just this blanket assumption that this is true but it simply doesn't follow. For instance, the newest super collider project that some people are pushing for completely misses the opportunity cost of not funding other projects that could be far more impactful, like wakefield accelerators, which would reduce the size and cost of particle accelerators by orders of magnitude.
    - elashri 1y ago
      > For instance, the newest super collider project that some people are pushing for completely misses the opportunity cost of not funding other projects that could be far more impactful, like wakefield accelerators, which would reduce the size and cost of particle accelerators by orders of magnitude. This is not true in many aspects. There are many problems with plasma and laser wakefield acceleration. First, the beam quality (emittance and stability) is orders of magnitude below collider requirements. They have demonstrated GeV-scale acceleration over centimeters, but scaling to multi-TeV and maintaining luminosity is not even close to solved. There are no concept for a full detector-ready experimental program exists using wakefield accelerators. But on the other hand, we have "FCC" being based on mature accelerator technologies, with well-understood cost scaling and detector integration that builds on decades on experience building accelerators. Actually it is much safer option than what you are saying. But the important point is that you are making it binary choice, we can still investigate and work on wakefield accelerators while working on more mature projects. Remember than it takes decades of work and thousands of scientists to make any of these things work. And it is not the question of accelerator itself but what detector can use it and for what physics exactly. We can produce much more interesting physics colliding muons instead off protons but this is much more challenging task and will cost more efforts and will cost more. Also I would say that Scientific value isn’t measured by compactness or cost alone. This is a VC mindset not a scientist pushing boundaries of knowledge. > Right, defense can and has funded research for its own purposes, and sometimes those purposes can find wider commercial application (like the internet). That's all great, national defense is one of the government's primary purposes. Well since we are here. I know it is a cliche by now and many people HN doesn't like to be reminded about that but guess that is the most beneficial CERN output ?
jjtheblunt 1y ago
Apple definitely had an internal group doing mathematics research, which i know first hand. But yes there are, to your point, topics in science probably only done in academia etc, but, to my point, several are seriously funded in industry.
- whatshisface 1y ago
  I couldn't say more without knowing the details, but industrial labs don't usually research mathematics, so much as ways to apply mathematics to their industry. These are called "mathematics research departments," because they hire mathematicians.
jmalicki 1y ago
"Bell Laboratories has been the recipient of 11 Nobel Prizes in Physics, with notable laureates including John Bardeen, William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and Arthur Ashkin. Other notable achievements include the invention of the transistor, the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, and the development of optical tweezers." Microsoft Research has a ton of people working on theoretical CS. Biology - there is a ton of research in agriculture too - e.g. Monsanto and GMO seeds.
- whatshisface 1y ago
  The discovery of the CMB was accidental. Bell Labs didn't fund it intentionally.
- citadel_melon 1y ago
  Bell Labs was at its peak from 1960s-1970s. Since the 80s, corporate governance has completely changed due to Jack Welch’s short-term shareholder maximization ideology taking over the corporate world. I don’t think there are current private organizations doing research similar to what Bell Labs did as the current corporate-governance systems wouldn’t allow for it. Currently, industry research is more for profit-maximization at the expense of greater human prosperity/economic growth: such as you mention Monsanto making patented seeds, increasing profits by disallowing farmers to regrow crops more cheaply which otherwise could’ve been passed onto consumers/wider society.
- intended 1y ago
  There is tons of research on online safety being done at platforms. It can never be released.
mike_hearn 1y ago
Things aren't impossible to research in industry. Managers with an R&D budget can fund whatever research they want, and it's easy to find examples of companies doing research in most of the fields you name. The fields where it's not are because you've defined them in a circular fashion e.g. "chemistry aside from industrial chemistry" is not an argument for "there are things you can't do in industry", and space research is primarily driven by the private sector now but I guess you are defining astronomy to only include study of things too far away to matter to anyone except astronomers.
ben_w 1y ago
> how can people not know about astronomers? Light pollution. Lots of people now live in places where the stars are hard to spot. And now we also all have infinite distraction cuboids, many who can still see them if they look, won't look. And if you don't know what's out there — or mistakenly categorise all of space as scifi — then why would you be curious about it? Why even ask who might research it?

naasking 1y ago

> Astronomy. What benefits do you expect to see from the kinds astronomy that require this sort of funding? Sure, knowing things can be nice but this ignores opportunity costs, eg. would practical knowledge like fusion research be further along if talent weren't focused on impractical knowledge? > Physics. Not strictly true, see quantum computing for instance, lasers, semiconductors and so on. There are some types of physics that aren't viable in this sense, but why does that automatically translate into some need to support them? For instance, consider the decades spent on supersymmetry which ultimately produced bupkis. In a world in which we weren't so focused on ideas so divorced from empirical data, what other types of knowledge or engineering would we have done? > Geophysics concerning the parts of the Earth deeper than the crust. What benefits do you expect to see? > Biology aside from medicine. Such as? What benefits do you expect to see? > Chemistry aside from industrial chemistry. Such as? What benefits do you expect to see? > Theoretical computer science. Untrue, Google and Facebook have advance distributed computing considerably, for instance. > Mathematics. Unclear, there's a lot of math involved in predictions of all sorts, like weather forecasting, stock market prediction. If your argument here is that math will be more application-focused, this strikes me much like the physics objection where it's unclear that we'd really be worse off. There seems to be this automatic assumption among some people that pure research with no direction or constraints is an unmitigated good and that we can't do better. I used to think so too, but I just don't see it anymore.

hnaccount_rng 1y ago
Basically none of modern optics would exist without astronomy (well at least astronomy is a convenient cover for military/intelligence interests funding better optics). Most of statistics and efficient cameras originate in astronomy/astrophysics (mostly because you have to count all the photons and you are never getting a second relevant measurement point) There are huge parts of physics which are only publicly funded. Results are often spun out into companies, but there is no institution that can fund experiments that require timelines of multiple decades (even things like fusion power is nearly completely government funds) And those are the only two parts where I actually have some competence. So yeah.. I wouldn't buy
- naasking 1y ago
  > well at least astronomy is a convenient cover for military/intelligence interests funding better optics Right, defense can and has funded research for its own purposes, and sometimes those purposes can find wider commercial application (like the internet). That's all great, national defense is one of the government's primary purposes. > There are huge parts of physics which are only publicly funded. Yes, and? Is this an argument that they cannot be funded in other ways, or an argument that the parts of physics that cannot be funded in any other way ought to be publicly funded? There's just this blanket assumption that this is true but it simply doesn't follow. For instance, the newest super collider project that some people are pushing for completely misses the opportunity cost of not funding other projects that could be far more impactful, like wakefield accelerators, which would reduce the size and cost of particle accelerators by orders of magnitude.
  - elashri 1y ago
    > For instance, the newest super collider project that some people are pushing for completely misses the opportunity cost of not funding other projects that could be far more impactful, like wakefield accelerators, which would reduce the size and cost of particle accelerators by orders of magnitude. This is not true in many aspects. There are many problems with plasma and laser wakefield acceleration. First, the beam quality (emittance and stability) is orders of magnitude below collider requirements. They have demonstrated GeV-scale acceleration over centimeters, but scaling to multi-TeV and maintaining luminosity is not even close to solved. There are no concept for a full detector-ready experimental program exists using wakefield accelerators. But on the other hand, we have "FCC" being based on mature accelerator technologies, with well-understood cost scaling and detector integration that builds on decades on experience building accelerators. Actually it is much safer option than what you are saying. But the important point is that you are making it binary choice, we can still investigate and work on wakefield accelerators while working on more mature projects. Remember than it takes decades of work and thousands of scientists to make any of these things work. And it is not the question of accelerator itself but what detector can use it and for what physics exactly. We can produce much more interesting physics colliding muons instead off protons but this is much more challenging task and will cost more efforts and will cost more. Also I would say that Scientific value isn’t measured by compactness or cost alone. This is a VC mindset not a scientist pushing boundaries of knowledge. > Right, defense can and has funded research for its own purposes, and sometimes those purposes can find wider commercial application (like the internet). That's all great, national defense is one of the government's primary purposes. Well since we are here. I know it is a cliche by now and many people HN doesn't like to be reminded about that but guess that is the most beneficial CERN output ?

jjtheblunt 1y ago

Apple definitely had an internal group doing mathematics research, which i know first hand. But yes there are, to your point, topics in science probably only done in academia etc, but, to my point, several are seriously funded in industry.

whatshisface 1y ago
I couldn't say more without knowing the details, but industrial labs don't usually research mathematics, so much as ways to apply mathematics to their industry. These are called "mathematics research departments," because they hire mathematicians.

jmalicki 1y ago

"Bell Laboratories has been the recipient of 11 Nobel Prizes in Physics, with notable laureates including John Bardeen, William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and Arthur Ashkin. Other notable achievements include the invention of the transistor, the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, and the development of optical tweezers." Microsoft Research has a ton of people working on theoretical CS. Biology - there is a ton of research in agriculture too - e.g. Monsanto and GMO seeds.

whatshisface 1y ago
The discovery of the CMB was accidental. Bell Labs didn't fund it intentionally.
citadel_melon 1y ago
Bell Labs was at its peak from 1960s-1970s. Since the 80s, corporate governance has completely changed due to Jack Welch’s short-term shareholder maximization ideology taking over the corporate world. I don’t think there are current private organizations doing research similar to what Bell Labs did as the current corporate-governance systems wouldn’t allow for it. Currently, industry research is more for profit-maximization at the expense of greater human prosperity/economic growth: such as you mention Monsanto making patented seeds, increasing profits by disallowing farmers to regrow crops more cheaply which otherwise could’ve been passed onto consumers/wider society.
intended 1y ago
There is tons of research on online safety being done at platforms. It can never be released.

mike_hearn 1y ago

Things aren't impossible to research in industry. Managers with an R&D budget can fund whatever research they want, and it's easy to find examples of companies doing research in most of the fields you name. The fields where it's not are because you've defined them in a circular fashion e.g. "chemistry aside from industrial chemistry" is not an argument for "there are things you can't do in industry", and space research is primarily driven by the private sector now but I guess you are defining astronomy to only include study of things too far away to matter to anyone except astronomers.

ben_w 1y ago

> how can people not know about astronomers? Light pollution. Lots of people now live in places where the stars are hard to spot. And now we also all have infinite distraction cuboids, many who can still see them if they look, won't look. And if you don't know what's out there — or mistakenly categorise all of space as scifi — then why would you be curious about it? Why even ask who might research it?