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11 September 2010 | NewScientist | 5
EDITORIAL
SCIENCE abounds with tales of serendipity – those fortunate discoveries that were made while a researcher looked for something quite unrelated.
Everyone can recall examples of these happy accidents, from the discovery of the antibiotic penicillin by Alexander Fleming to the detection of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson.
For such discoveries to be made, two doses of good luck are needed: an unexpected observation, and the presence of a smart, informed and open mind that can appreciate how the discovery provides a world-changing insight.
But there is another kind of improbable notion that can be found in science, one that needs more than good luck to make it into the mainstream. These ideas go against the wisdom of the day and are written off as mad, boring, dangerous or simply worthless – only to be proved right years later.
Scepticism of novelty is entirely understandable and central to the scientific process. After all, most radical ideas turn out to be wrong. Yet a small but significant number of these
unlikely ideas have gone on to change the world (see page 34).
The 11 ideas described in our cover story have done just this. They range from basic molecular biology to engineering, and underpin everyday items from aircraft to iPods.
Such success stories hold lessons for those who want to manage the process of innovation and speed the passage of ideas from the laboratory into the marketplace. Bean counters dream
of the day when researchers are able to predict the likely economic and social benefits of their research when applying for grants, so that they can fund the obvious winners.
If any of our examples had been subjected to that kind of scrutiny, they would never have seen the light of day. That point has been made before, but in these times of economic hardship and uncertainty it is worth making again. Those who would slash science funding point out that blue-sky research is worthless
in the short term, forgetting it can have a longer term outcome, one that lies far beyond the shelf life of a typical politician or policy-maker.
In the UK, for example, the plan is to cut government spending by 25 per cent this year. If this includes science funding, then some scientists have warned that it could have drastic consequences, from the mothballing of a major science facility to undermining the UK’s involvement in international collaborations such as the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), not to mention drastic drops in the numbers of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers.
To deal with the fallout of the credit crisis, even a moderate fiscal conservative would see little wrong with making cutbacks of this kind over the next few years to help a country get out of debt. But the fact that even unlikely scientific ideas can go on to change the world shows one thing is certain. In the medium and long term, cuts in blue-sky research will sap the vigour of innovation.
If you squeeze basic research today, you short-change future generations. n
The joys of unlikely scienceSqueeze blue-sky ideas and you short-change future generations
STEPHEN HAWKING certainly believes in the power of God when it comes to promoting his new book (see page 50).
According to the world’s most famous living scientist, a deity is not needed to explain the creation of the universe. All you need to light the blue touch paper is M-theory, a theoretical framework first put forward in 1995 by Ed Witten of the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton. In other words, the universe ignited itself. This unsurprising revelation, to physicists at least, still managed to generate headlines around the globe.
M-theory is certainly worth regarding with awe. Its potential to be a theory of everything is what drives so many scientists to study it. Yet it is still a work in progress. The theory is running
ahead of experiment, and even with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, it seems highly unlikely that this mathematically beautiful theory can be put to any kind of meaningful test for decades, if not generations.
Until there is empirical evidence for M-theory, Hawking’s suggestion that it has all the answers is just a matter of faith. n
Hawking’s faith in M-theory
“Ideas can be written off as mad, boring, dangerous or worthless, only to be proved right years later”
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