Rewriting i40 on 2009-02-13

“Scholars and researchers should not be concerned with whether their work makes a contribution to the larger society. It is more important that they pursue their individual interests, however unusual or idiosyncratic those interests may seem.”

 

According to the title statement, the speaker asserts that scholars and researchers should not be concerned with whether their work makes a contribution to the larger society and just pursue their individual interests. As in my opinion, this assertion must be considered in two facets – scholars and researchers who work in the academic field and those who work in the applied field, and, if doing so, it may yield a totally different conclusion.

 

G.H.Hardy, a prominent English mathematician, preferred his work to be considered “pure mathematics”. He made several famous statements, one of the most famous statements is “I have never done anything ‘useful’. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world.” However, aside from formulating the Hardy-Weinberg principle in population genetics, his famous work on integer partitions with his collaborator Ramanujan, known as the Hardy-Ramanujan asymptotic formula, has been widely applied in physics to find quantum partition functions of atomic nuclei and to derive thermodynamic functions of non-interacting Bose-Einstein systems. Though Hardy wanted his maths to be “pure” and devoid of any application, much of his work has found applications in other branches of science.

 

According to the example above, we can conclude that those who work in academic fields may have the freedom to just pursue their individual interests. In fact, in the academic field, most theories are put forward without the intent that these theories aim to make a contribution to the larger society. “What is the use of an infant?” Dr. Franklin says to such.

 

However, in contrast, scholars and researchers who work in the applied field do not have this freedom. They must concern themselves with what the outer society needs and whether the work they do has practicality, and if not, the research work is useless.

 

For example, during World War II, many scholars and researchers took part in a project named “The Manhattan Project”, which is now known as the development of the atomic weapon. Those who attended the project worked for the U.S. military, and their work was to follow the reasonable steps to design an A-bomb. Everybody had to be concerned with whether their work made a contribution to the project. In fact, during wartime, each science project must consider its utility, because the Nazi scientists were doing the same thing at the same time. If the Allies’ research fell behind, they might be in a difficult situation and be on the defensive.

In addition, even in peacetime, scholars and researchers who work for a corporation may consider the practicability of their work. Obviously, the manager of a development group must provide products to the company, not just theory. In most companies, even the most talented designer must be limited by the rules and cannot design products without considering the cost.

 

There are still several other aspects relevant to the issue under discussion, which, unfortunately, I have no time to explore in detail. But the above-discussed reasons should to a large extent justify my claim that scholars and researchers who work in applied fields must be concerned with whether their work contributes to the larger society, and those who work in academia do not.

The first draft I wrote was accidentally lost, so I wrote a second one. I’m too tired, and there are definitely many errors that I’m too lazy to check. I’ll go to sleep first.