[LINK] Einstein's fridge an example for NICTA?

[Karl Auer]

> And so on. The regrettable outcome is that you have to take some science 
> funding as risk money, and ignore those who believe that all research 
> should have a measurable payoff within the life of the government doing 
> the funding.

The difficulty is that almost all scientific endeavour "fails". There
are a zillion times more ways to be wrong than there are to be right.

Refusing to fund pure research is a bit like refusing to fund the
excavation of all that rock, because so little of it is gold.

Just as all that rock goes with the territory if you want to find gold,
so too does a vast amount of (in hindsight) "pointless" research have to
be done to provide the soil in which great discoveries (and great
discoverers!) can grow.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)