In our cynical, short-attention-span age, it has become imperative to rally to the defence of pure, basic, long-term research. R&D isn’t just D. Without aggressive R, there will be no major, new or surprising industries.
Governments and business have steadily backed off from investing in pure research. A key moment, perhaps, came in 1993, when the US Congress cancelled plans for a Superconducting Super Collider facility in Texas.
Today, even a research project like Europe’s Large Hadron Collider feels called upon to say that one of its byproducts may be new science, ‘that can be applied almost immediately’. [1]