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Originally Posted by HDRider
On the one hand, I find stuff like this to be absolutely fascinating. On the other? Utterly useless. It's cool that they've detected something that's been long theorized, but is there any practical application for this new knowledge?
One of those interesting dichotomies of life, I guess!
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With due respect, I need to comment on this, the idea that core science does not advance our quality of life. Here is one example, I can think of many.
Scientists were looking at the biology of insulin and its role in the brain. Out of curiosity they exposed mice who have a gene to develop Alzheimer's to insulin to see what happened. It turned out that mice exposed to insulin had a complete reversal of Alzheimers! They next created an insulin nasal spray and gave it to a few patients with Alzheimers. Guess what? Most improved, not all, but most. And those who did, could think and remember again and got their life back. All of this from fooling around seeing what effect insulin has on mouse brains.
So the core science of today becomes tomorrow's miracle. Gravitational wave studies connect electromagnetism and gravity, two complete unconnected fields of physics. Nothing is faster than the speed of light, but gravity is instant, and hence breaks that first rule! We have no idea where this will lead. The majority of scientific breakthroughs are not planned research but accidents.