Bell Labs Kills Fundamental Physics Research

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Wired: "After six Nobel Prizes, the invention of the transistor, laser and countless contributions to computer science and technology, it is the end of the road for Bell Labs' fundamental physics research lab. Alcatel-Lucent, the parent company of Bell Labs, is pulling out of basic science, material physics and semiconductor research and will instead be focusing on more immediately marketable areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software." Jamie points out this list of Bell Labs' accomplishments at Wikipedia, including little things like the UNIX operating system.

Comments

the idealist versus the realist

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the idealist has lofty goals, but will not sully himself with wordly concerns, and winds up doing nothing

he does however, heap scorn on the realist, who actually gets something done by working within the messy parameters of the world before him, and actually makes progress work. the realist does not achieve the high-impossible goals of the idealist, but he sets the groundwork so later generations can reach ever closer to the ideal

this conflict defines much of what goes on in politics and ideology. the idealist is merely a mental child, stunted in growth over his inability or refusal to deal with the ugliness of reality. he is also very loud, very whiny, its all he does. the realist is quiet, too busy working, actually getting something done

the idealist believes he is holding on to a concept the realist has forgotten. the realist fully understands the concept the idealist thinks he has a monopoly on. the realist is merely too busy working towards the ideal the idealist merely whines about to rebut the idealist. its a waste of time to engage an idealist. they are merely mental damage to be routed around and ignored

its not even really important the final redoubt of the idealist, how he thinks he is actually serving mankind: keeping the flame, holding on to lofty ideals in the face of those who compromise them to get stuff done. this is not really a worthy effort. that's because idealism is simpleminded, it is a form of fundamentalism. it is something that any 14 year old can discover independently and grasp completely, and many do. with luck, that 14 year old will realize he needs to be realistic. otherwise, he remains an idealist, stunted in growth, the immature waste reborn anew in every generation. very loud, very useless people