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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.misc,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: military funding in mathematics
Message-ID: <7257@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 26-Oct-86 00:18:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7257
Posted: Sun Oct 26 00:18:09 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Oct-86 00:18:09 EDT
References: <2055@princeton.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 34

> When the
> time comes--God forbid--to build antimatter weaponry, stochastic cool-
> ing and its future refinements will suddenly become very interesting
> to DoD.  Stochastic cooling, by the way, was what made the discovery
> of the W+,W-,Z0 possible, and was what Simon van der Meere was awarded
> the Nobel prize for in 1984.

Actually, we're likely to be building antimatter rockets long before anyone
gets interested in antimatter weapons.  The USAF is *already* funding work
on antimatter rockets for in-space propulsion.  Antimatter weapons would
be enormously expensive and present serious handling problems; antimatter
rockets would compete in an area where conventional solutions are already
enormously expensive, and the more benign environment simplifies the
handling problems.

If van der Meere's Nobel was for stochastic cooling, as opposed to the W+
etc., then clearly it should have been the Nobel Prize For Accelerator
Engineering, not the Nobel Prize For Physics (ignoring the nonexistence
of a Nobel Prize of the former type!).  Accelerator engineering is an
oddball case because it has virtually no applications right now except
among the physicists.  But it is very definitely a branch of engineering,
not physics.  This will become obvious as soon as other applications appear.

> I do not think it very wise to make negative predictions about the fu-
> ture utility of pure research.  Such has a dismal track record.

Personally, I agree, but the above is a very poor example.  Accelerator
engineering is not pure research.  Practical applicability of modern
particle physics -- as opposed to the specialized engineering disciplines
driven and funded by particle-physics applications -- would seem minimal
for the immediate future.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry