[seesawtron]

Always amazes me to see that society as a whole has been and continues to be willing to use public (or private) funding to support natural sciences. In the short term, one often faces the argument about the meaningless of doing things just for the sake of knowing or understanding nature. But in the long run, attracting scientists and engineers to work on such problems must (insert my optimism) add a significant value to our society as a whole.

[k__]

Just think about all the computer science stuff from last century that gets traction lately.

Theory is just much faster than practice.