5 ms·

Can you give a citation for this 1930s survey?

philangist 13y ago
I'm not sure whether the survey is real or OP made it up, but I don't think it matters. The point is that "...investing in long-sighted, ill-defined, radical, impractical projects is not only valuable but essential."
- myke_cameron 13y ago
  If its real, a citation would be great. Its a fantastic story worthy of sharing, (presuming its not a fabrication).
- jessriedel 13y ago
  It absolutely matters. It's a completely open question under which circumstances and to what extent we should trust expert opinion in planning the future. "...investing in long-sighted, ill-defined, radical, impractical projects is not only valuable but essential" is a rather useless platitude without further data--as in actual facts--because such long-range projects run the gamat from promising to useless to actively negative.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    Besides which, we weren't providing that much funding to nuclear physics before the War. We only funded the Manhattan Project after the War had already started, and after nuclear fission had already been demonstrated in the lab. In Germany, mind you. In other words, we didn't get the atomic bomb by lavishly funding the second least useful field of science. We got it by funding what was already known at the time to be the most promising weapon of mass destruction. People had been writing about the possibilities of atomic energy since Rutherford. In fact, H. G. Wells even wrote a book, prior to the First World War, on how nuclear weapons would make it possible to destroy human civilization. (He got the details wrong about how the weapon worked, but he appreciated the enormous energies involved.) A bunch of medieval historians may not have appreciated nuclear physics, but the real experts already knew of its potential. It was, after all, Albert Einstein who helped get the ball rolling on the Manhattan Project, by signing that letter and lending his celebrity to the cause.
squidfood 13y ago
The scientist who conducted the survey? Albert Einstein.

I'm not sure whether the survey is real or OP made it up, but I don't think it matters. The point is that "...investing in long-sighted, ill-defined, radical, impractical projects is not only valuable but essential."

myke_cameron 13y ago
If its real, a citation would be great. Its a fantastic story worthy of sharing, (presuming its not a fabrication).
jessriedel 13y ago
It absolutely matters. It's a completely open question under which circumstances and to what extent we should trust expert opinion in planning the future. "...investing in long-sighted, ill-defined, radical, impractical projects is not only valuable but essential" is a rather useless platitude without further data--as in actual facts--because such long-range projects run the gamat from promising to useless to actively negative.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  Besides which, we weren't providing that much funding to nuclear physics before the War. We only funded the Manhattan Project after the War had already started, and after nuclear fission had already been demonstrated in the lab. In Germany, mind you. In other words, we didn't get the atomic bomb by lavishly funding the second least useful field of science. We got it by funding what was already known at the time to be the most promising weapon of mass destruction. People had been writing about the possibilities of atomic energy since Rutherford. In fact, H. G. Wells even wrote a book, prior to the First World War, on how nuclear weapons would make it possible to destroy human civilization. (He got the details wrong about how the weapon worked, but he appreciated the enormous energies involved.) A bunch of medieval historians may not have appreciated nuclear physics, but the real experts already knew of its potential. It was, after all, Albert Einstein who helped get the ball rolling on the Manhattan Project, by signing that letter and lending his celebrity to the cause.

squidfood 13y ago

The scientist who conducted the survey? Albert Einstein.