NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/space/18269

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From: [e-mail] (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: Justification for the Space Program
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News)
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 19:20:31 GMT
Lines: 96

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (I am a terminator.) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Herman Rubin) writes:
>> The US economy might be growing in dollar terms, but not in real terms
>|> per capita.  And one does not benefit if others catch up at one's
>|> expense.

>If others catch up, then they can work together with us instead of playing
>catch up. If others never made a single step to catch up, I suppose we would
>benefit?

For others to catch up, we have to stand still.  In nature, standing still
means death.  Also, for the others to catch up, there has to be enough "up"
to be caught.

>|> Academic salaries are lower in real terms now than 20 years ago, and
>|> the research which drives the future is being curtailed.  The emphasis
>|> on short-term practical results is a vain attempt to keep a reasonable
>|> position, and will soon backfire.

>I think people should be trained to make research results practical. Also,
>research reports should facilitate such efforts. Then those who are inclined
>to do research can get a chance to do research without having to worry so
>much about making their results practical.

THIS is what is, unfortunately, now being proposed.  But this will mean the
end of real innovative research.  It is true that the time between finding
basic results and applying them is shortening, but it will never vanish.

Without atronomy, it is doubtful if space exploration and travel would
ver have been done.  But apart from the calendar and predicting eclipses,
no practical applications have yet been made of the astronomical research.

Much of the mathematics and statistics being applied was studied as "pure"
research long before its applicability was seen.  Would the number theory
needed for work on cryptography have been created for that purpose?  No, it
was just pure research which led to it, without any idea that practical
consequences would occur years, and even centuries, later.  Probability
was studied as a means to better strategies for games of chance, and it
was only later that it was applied.  The same holds for analytic function
theory, group theory, and even linear algebra.

Did Darwin and Wallace have any applications for their observations in
mind when they made their studies and arrived at their conclusions about
evolution and natural selection?  Did Maxwell foresee radio and X-rays
when he derived his equations about the electromagnetic field, or even
dynamos and electic motors?  When Faraday was asked by the British Prime
Minister of what use was his discovery, I know of two answers in the
legendary literature, one, "Of what use is a baby?", and the other,
"You will find a way to tax it."

Radioactive decay and nuclear transmutation were discovered totally by
accident.  Nuclear fusion was deduced more from astronomy than anything
else.  And nuclear fission was only discovered by wondering why barium,
strontium, etc., were found in uranium deposits.

There is a search for more efficient superconductors for eminently practical
reasons.  But superconductivity itself was a surprise.

If we know what we will find, it is not research.  If we do not know, we can
only grope.  It takes the imaginative mind to see what is there, even when
groping.

>|> The US now has more government jobs than manufacturing.  The universities
>|> are catering to the ignoramuses coming out of the high schools, and standards
>|> are just about dead.

>I reflect on my public school. I think the teachers need to do much better.
>They are too afraid students won't work on their own. However, they offered
>little motivation to students to work. Students just followed rules to get
>marks. They didn't have their hearts in work.

>>Consider China.  The private sector there will grow more than 20% this
>>year, and exceed the size of the public sector; aggregate GNP growth
>>will be in double digits.  At current growth rates, China's GNP could
>>exceed the entire OECD's by the year 2010.  The per capita GNP could
>>reach current US levels within a generation, at current rates of
>>growth.

>|> Does the world have enough resources for this?

>We must wait and see. Be more efficient. That's an order.

Efficiency only goes so far.  Except for the insects, the great majority
of land animals are warm-blooded.  Warm-blooded animals are far less
efficient from the energy standpoint, often using more energy just to
maintain life than for all other purposes.  Man has raised his standard
of living by being far more wasteful of energy.

This group is concerned with space.  To get into space, we must use gobs
of energy.  But I believe that what we find there will be worth it; the
principle of serendipity is not over.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)