Basic research is like shooting an arrow into the air and, where it lands, painting a target.
—Homer Burton Adkins, 1984
18
While practical benefits often result from pure academic research […], such benefits are not
guaranteed and cannot be predicted; nor need they be seen as the ultimate goal.
—Abraham Flexner, 1939
This ‘truth for truth’s sake’ is a delusion of so-called savants.
—Karl K. Darrow, 1934
The role of science is auxiliary; it is just a means to the attainment of well-being.
—Dmitri Mendeleev
19
No style of thinking will survive which cannot produce a usable product, when survival is
at stake.
—Thomas Favill Gladwin, 1970
Pure scientists have by and large been dim-witted about engineers and applied science. […]
Their instinct—perhaps sharpened in this country by the passion to find new snobbism
wherever possible, and to invent one if it does not exist—was to take for granted that
applied science was an occupation for second-rate minds.
—C. P. Snow, 1964
Applied science is just as interesting as pure science, and what is more it’s damn sight more
difficult.
—William Bate Hardy
20
Fundamental science does things right; engineering does the right things; applied science
does the right things right.
—Anonymous
21
The scientist merely explores that which exists, while the engineer creates what has never
existed before.
—Theodore von Kármán, 1967
Science may amuse and fascinate us, but it is engineering that changes the world. […] A
scientist can discover a star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to
make one for him.
—Isaac Asimov, 1969
Science clears the fields on which technology can build.
—Werner Heisenberg, 1958
18
A more general paraphrase of this quip by Ashleigh Brilliant is even more quoted.
19
As quoted, without a date, by V. V. Vorontsov in 1979.
20
As quoted, without a date, by Henry Tizard in 1955.
21
The expression “doing the right things right” may be met in many texts published well before
2016 when it was taken by Laura Stack for the title of her popular how-to book.
34
On Science and Technology
—Homer Burton Adkins, 1984
18
While practical benefits often result from pure academic research […], such benefits are not
guaranteed and cannot be predicted; nor need they be seen as the ultimate goal.
—Abraham Flexner, 1939
This ‘truth for truth’s sake’ is a delusion of so-called savants.
—Karl K. Darrow, 1934
The role of science is auxiliary; it is just a means to the attainment of well-being.
—Dmitri Mendeleev
19
No style of thinking will survive which cannot produce a usable product, when survival is
at stake.
—Thomas Favill Gladwin, 1970
Pure scientists have by and large been dim-witted about engineers and applied science. […]
Their instinct—perhaps sharpened in this country by the passion to find new snobbism
wherever possible, and to invent one if it does not exist—was to take for granted that
applied science was an occupation for second-rate minds.
—C. P. Snow, 1964
Applied science is just as interesting as pure science, and what is more it’s damn sight more
difficult.
—William Bate Hardy
20
Fundamental science does things right; engineering does the right things; applied science
does the right things right.
—Anonymous
21
The scientist merely explores that which exists, while the engineer creates what has never
existed before.
—Theodore von Kármán, 1967
Science may amuse and fascinate us, but it is engineering that changes the world. […] A
scientist can discover a star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to
make one for him.
—Isaac Asimov, 1969
Science clears the fields on which technology can build.
—Werner Heisenberg, 1958
18
A more general paraphrase of this quip by Ashleigh Brilliant is even more quoted.
19
As quoted, without a date, by V. V. Vorontsov in 1979.
20
As quoted, without a date, by Henry Tizard in 1955.
21
The expression “doing the right things right” may be met in many texts published well before
2016 when it was taken by Laura Stack for the title of her popular how-to book.
34
On Science and Technology