I recently saw a Cleo Abrams video about particle accelerators and the lead scientist said that they use particle accelerators to create the building blocks for future innovations.
I’m sure advancements have been made only because particle accelerators exist but I don’t know any. Can someone highlight a direct influence particle accelerators have on our daily lives?
In: Physics
Science is broken up into 2 categories:
1. Applied science which seeks to solve problems. For example, one might spend time making a more efficient jet engine or breed crops to be more drought resistant
2. Basic science which is more focused on asking questions instead of answering them. Think particle accelerators, space telescopes and the gravitational wave detectors. None of the discoveries made from them will likely lead to technology that ends up in your hands in the next decade.
Governments and universities fund these ventures because corporations won’t since they are bottomless money pits. When Madame Curie and her husband discovered radiation from uranium it had no practical purpose, people were using it to make crystal dinnerware that glowed in the dark. It wasn’t until decades later that we were able to safely harness it’s power. When Sir Walter Rayleigh went to answer the question the why the sky is blue, he wasn’t doing it because there was a practical purpose to answering that question but answering that question will also answer the question of how do I detect large thunderstorms or manage air traffic? When Albert Einstein proposed the Theory of Relativity, he answered questions no one had even thought about not because they had a practical application, it was just a thought experiment. But without answering those questions GPS would not work.
These are the building blocks that she’s talking about. I will not be alive when we come up with a practical purpose for understanding the Higs Boson, but I’m glad we have scientists who dedicate their lives to it.
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