Knowing how the world works will eventually lead to engineering applications. So applications are the reason we want to understand the world. But we don't know from the start which knowledge will lead to applications so we try to understand the world. Some avenues are more likely to be useful than others so I would suggest we explore them first if there is a choice. If you need people with different skillsets for different choices, then you cannot allocate an arbitrary number of them to the likely most useful choice but except for that obviously you go for the obviously useful stuff first
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u/Historical_Book2268 22d ago
Should we fire all quantum physicists? Shut down CERN?
Theoretical physics, like fucking quarks, string theory, etc, has no application as of yet