somebody nous illumina en ce 2008-09-26 16:41 -->
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
> news:48dd34c7$1@news.povray.org...
>> somebody wrote:
> 
>>> 1) Radioactivity was not called "high energy physics" back then, nor is
> it
>>> called that now.
> 
>> You're missing the point. (As you seem to have been for much of the
>> discussion.)  It wasn't called that, but that's what it was,
> 
> No, it wasn't.
> 
>> and nobody  knew when they discovered it what it would lead to.
> 
> So if X is a member of Y and Z and if Q is a member of Y, then Q is also a
> member of Z?
> 
> Ie: Radiation, which when we observed it we didn't know what it would lead
> to, actually led to useful applications, so, say, Higgs, which we don't know
> what it may lead to, will lead to useful applications when observed. Such
> reasoning doesn't follow.
> 
> Moreover, radioactivity obviously *did* have an effect on everyday life.
> That was how it was discovered (much like how magnetism or electricity was
> discovered in ancient times).
> 
> HEP operates in a domain not presently or foreseeably applicable to everyday
> life. We are not trying to explain an observed phenomenon, we are trying to
> "observe" something, that which is not even currently a phenomenon.
> Unfortunately, not all discoveries will bear fruit in a lifetime or twenty.
> There's no such physical law. Some discoveries will remain academic for a
> long, long time.
> 
> 
It's true that some researches, and discoveries, will remain academic for a 
long, long time, some from the antiquity are still mostly academic even today...

You can never say if any research will remain only academic, and, if so, for how 
long, or lead to every days applications within a few years.

Today, we are at a point where "chance" discovery tend to get rare. If we are to 
discover something new, that may lead to every days applications, we must do 
some, often prety weird looking/sounding, advanced experiments and researches. 
Sometimes, we do the experiments only to discover if a given theory is or is not 
correct, and, sometimes, those experiments do provide us with some new every 
days benefits... But only a few to many years later.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
You know you've been raytracing too long when you have ever snuck out of your 
bedroom to moniter the progress of an overnight render.
     -- Stephan Ahonen

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