Re: ECON: Private research dollars
Jim McCoy (mccoy@communities.com)
Fri, 30 Jan 1998 12:34:14 -0800
Craig Presson <dhr@iname.com> wrote:
>
>On 29 Jan 98 at 6:10, "Geoff Smith" <geoffs@unixg.ubc.ca> quoted:
>
>> > Point 1. The laser was not `invented' from the need for new
surgical
>> > instruments, nor the nanotube from the need of new fibres, nor
radar
>> > from the need to detect enemy aircraft, nor the chip for the
purpose
>> > of miniaturization, nor, nor, .....
>
>This is wrong at least in part. Radar was developed in a wartime
crash
>program.
Radar, as the name implies, was developed for rangefinding and
targetting in this program but the first principles upon which it is
based were not. Radio experiments in the 20s and 30s discovered that
radio waves bounced off of storm fronts. It was weather research and
a cool new toy called radio, not a need to track aricraft, which
brought us radar.
jim