J. Robert Oppenheimer Quotes
The deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them..
The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb
J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1904-1967, Physicist and Scientific Director of the Manhattan Project, 1943, Quoted in Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, 1986
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Canute was a Scandinavian king who tried to control the ocean tides to show his power. In this particular case, the court ruled that new life forms could be patented.
This quotation illustrates a way in which science is frequently at odds with politics. Our politicians realize the importance of scientific research to our standard of living, economy, and quality of life. So they want to support research and development programs. However, budgeting and planning for these in terms of expected or desired results is virtually impossible. So scientific research, especially basic research is not susceptible to the usual planning and monitoring that is so common and effective in construction projects or other applications of science and technology. It is hard to predict when and which scientists will have the next critical idea. It is very difficult to hold scientists or administrators accountable for scientific research results because of this factor. See {624876}.
Most of the greatest scientific breakthroughs were motivated by a search for the truth, a desire to understand the world, and the joy of discovery, not utility. None the less, the results have had profound usefulness to humanity in most cases. After this basic research, there are other people who then specifically work to apply the basic research to improvement in the human condition. That is applied research. Each important basic research breakthrough spawns a host of applications that are then developed.
Citizen of U. S. & Israel
By “arts” Jefferson meant the mechanical arts—inventions and engineering. Jefferson Extrapolated the science and technology progress at the time to the future in a way that few others did at that time.
This quotation is important for politicians who appropriate research funds. There are many, important, significant, scientific findings, that are inherent to what we already know, but needs the scientific person-power and time to “work it out.”
J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. The first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico.
