Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[tantal]

Well, actually, no, I really meant that Science is slow. Computers don't affect the rate of anything that doesn't require a computer. For example, preparing a sample for a furnace, or for a spectrometer, or preparing and purifying a chemical. Testing new plastics, reformulating, new metal alloys, composite materials, all that stuff.

You wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to get your newly invented material to stick to some other material like a plastic or a metal. Sometimes that's the problem that can't be solved.

Science is slow because we're still having that same old discussion with Mother (Nature) that we've always had, and Mother doesn't use the internet or a pentium IV w/ rdram. She just tells you how wrong you are day after day with that smug look on her face, just like she's always done.

That's really what I meant to explain, but I guess work has me just a BIT frustrated at the moment <G>.

REALLY, the problem IS invention. We have more people inventing these days than ever before, but if you check out the patents that are being granted, the signal to noise ratio is really quite low. Vanishingly low if you're talking about things with real commercial value.

Invention IS the problem. It's hard. It's not like writing a computer program to make your desktop purple with polka-dots. It's INVENTION. Something that's never been done before, and might not ever be without YOUR brilliant insight.

Small is small!