🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4ua74n$4ho@server4.softdisk.com>,
   George Acton <gactonso@softdisk.com> wrote:
>d.jensen@geel.dwt.csiro.au (Dennis Jensen) wrote:
>>
>>You seem to forget that sometimes things are developed originally for >the 
pure wonder of it. Aircraft are a case in point. Try to name one 
>>significant aviation technological breakthrough that came as a result 
>>of war work,
>
>Radar.
>
Invented and tested prior to WW2. Read, for example, Len Deighton's "Fighter".

>>and I will be able to point you to prior peacetime work 
>
>Of course, the physics goes back to Maxwell, Hertz, et al.  But
>the Received Idea is that it's a great triumph of the mobilization
>of scientific talent since WWII.  In favor of the Received Idea is
>that the physics had been around for decades, but only the military
>had the recources to develop the ideas.
>    I think that there are many cases on both sides of this issue.
>You're correct that curiosity comes first.  But for many ideas in
>science, the only institutions that have any reason to sponsor the
>research are military, so the military gets credit for fostering
>progress or blame for corrupting pure science, depending on ones
>point of view.  
>    --George Acton
>

I agree that it is simplistic to say that any invention in the 20th century is 
the result of either peace work or war work. I do think that the military has 
thrown money at pre-existing ideas to get them to work; on the other hand, I 
think that the military has come up with very, very little that is truly new.

Money can sometimes be thrown at non-military applications; it just has to be 
politically expedient at the time (e.g. space race, particle colliders). It is 
just a pity that there is such a lack of funding for non-military 
applications. But getting back to the original argument, it is ridiculous to 
say that the 747 is a result of war work only.

Dennis