‘Tying science research only to practical applications not good’ It may lead to some short-term gains, but not in the long term: Nobel laureate

Staff Reporter in Oxford where physicists Bengaluru are called experimental phi- Tying science funding only losophers,” he says. to research that has immi- A paradigm shift in phys- nent practical applications ics is imminent, he believes, will be very bad in the long whether it is a revolution in run, says physicist Anthony cosmology in better under- J. Leggett, who won the 2003 standing dark matter or dark Nobel prize for his work on energy, or even quantum low-temperature physics. computing and theories of The 80-year-old’s com- superconductivity. ments come in the backdrop Prof. Rohini Godbole, of fears of stagnation in In- Sir Anthony James Leggett along with other delegates at the who was recently conferred dian government spending symposium in honour of the Nobel laureate’s 80th birthday, the Padma Shri, says the fu- on science or recent empha- in Bengaluru on Monday. * K. MURALI KUMAR ture will see particulate mat- sis on research institutes to ter physicists revisit princi- raise their own funds and go- the honour of his 80th birth- ture physics, superconduc- ples which have been the vernment focus only on ap- day, at Raman Research In- tors and super fluids, while foundations of the fields. plication-oriented science. stitute. While there are a few his works have been influen- “Large Hadron Collider ex- “This is a very bad ap- instances of private benefac- tial in quantum research. Ad- periments have found Higgs proach. It may lead to some tors of private institutes sup- dressing the symposium on Boson, but it has not found short-term gains, but not in porting curiosity-driven the future of physics in the other predicted particles. In- the long term. There are ma- science — which aims to ex- 21st century, Sir Leggett says stead, it has shown us that ny examples that show en- plore answers to particular future investigations into the principles used by theoreti- couraging curiosity-driven questions rather than come relation of quantum me- cal physicists to predict par- science has led to long-term up with real-world applica- chanics and human con- ticles does not seem good. scientific gain. These gains tions — it has to be largely up sciousness will lead to inter- For 80 years, we have relied may be difficult to predict in to governments to ensure esting avenues. “Can we on these principles. It is per- advance, but this approach scientists are allowed to pur- describe consciousness in haps time to go back to the has worked well for the U.S. sue their curiosity, he said. quantum terms? Undoubted- days of the cosmic rays dis- and Europe and should work ly the questions we ask in covery where we have the well here too,” said Sir Leg- Future of physics this will be in the realm of data in front of us and then gett, who was in the city for a The Nobel laureate has been physics and philosophy. Af- we figure it out what particle two-day symposium held in a pioneer in low-tempera- ter all, there are some chairs is where,” she said.