[extropy-chat] Feynman's 1963 Lecture - The Uncertainty of Science

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> I can *almost* imagine Feynman suggesting folks just
> get on out and
> do some observing and testing right after the
> lecture on there very own
> garage synchrotrons and supercolliders and then to
> be sure to send him
> a cheerio if they find anything interesting.

That is indeed the ideal of science.  The reality -
that most people can not afford the tools to do that -
is an often underappreciated consequence: to get more
science, make the tools to do cutting edge work more
affordable.  Sponsor R&D for cheaper tools; subsidize
tool purchases; et cetera.

Financial constraints do not invalidate the ideal.
They may make the ideal impossible to attain in many
cases, but the basic concept - if you let a bunch of
people try various ideas in a certain topic, and
investigate any usual and interesting findings
regardless of who first comes up with them, you'll
find out more about reality (which does not care who
first discovers its various laws) - remains correct.

(As an example, fusion research.  Confine research to
a few large mega-expensive reactors, and we got little
progress for decades.  Come out with tabletop and
other small-scale fusion reactors, and watch the
problems finally start to unravel - even though there
is a fundamental physical reason why small fusion
reactors are much harder to make work well than big
ones.)