Words of scientific wisdom
Inspiration can be sought in unlikely places. Observing the way work was carried out by the meat packers of Chicago motivated Henry Ford to develop his efficient assembly line method for manufacturing.
Similarly, and hopefully, a small section of the episode Dead Irish Writers from The West Wing might trigger in you a newfound appreciation for fundamental research.
While discussing the importance of funding the superconducting supercollider – a controversial scientific project that would cost billions:
MILLGATE: It’s a machine that reveals the origin of matter… By smashing protons together at very high speeds and at very high temperatures, we can recreate the Big Bang in a laboratory setting, creating the kinds of particles that only existed in the first trillionth of a second after the universe was created.
SAM: Okay, terrific. I understand that. What kind of practical applications does it have?
MILLGATE: None at all.
SAM: You’re not in any way a helpful person.
MILLGATE: Don’t have to be. I have tenure.
SAM: Doctor.
MILLGATE: There are no practical applications, Sam. Anybody who says different is lying.
SENATOR ENLOW: If only we could only say what benefit this thing has, but no one’s been able to do that.
MILLGATE: That’s because great achievement has no road map. The X-ray’s pretty good. So is penicillin. Neither were discovered with a practical objective in mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And now, we have an entire world run by electronics. Haydn and Mozart never studied the classics. They couldn’t. They invented them.
SAM: Discovery.
MILLGATE: What?
SAM: That’s the thing that you were… Discovery is what. That’s what this is used for. It’s for discovery.
Finally, unexpected words from a legendary scientist should further convince you the uselessness of jotting down the usefulness of a potential discovery that may or may not happen to convince everyone (yourself included) that your research is worth undertaking (unless, of course, you’re applying for grants):
