Not on my pocketbook. Those “we” can go beg in the street.

Sione

Considering the bureaucratic red tape one would have to endure, and the widespread crowding-out effect of current government spending…. probably no one.

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/Web-en.html Yes that’s right the part of the interweb that all you non-techies actually use was invented at CERN. They are much more then just a big tube that smashes atoms.

that leads us into CERN itself (a entity funded by multiple governments which the US is not one of) http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/History-en.html pretty much almost everything in modern physics has some roots here. If not outright invented here.

Now onto the NASA sucks they don’t do nothin’ for nobody! Invisible braces, wow I’m sure a lot of people get those every day. I am sure glad I have scratch resistant lens on my glasses. I feel very rested today because I slept on my memory foam matress lastnight. For you baby owners out there (or parents whatever you call them) aren’t you glad you don’t have to stick that thermometer up their butt anymore? Oh yea thanks NASA. Shoe insoles, Improved satellite technology, cordless drills, and water filters. http://curiosity.discovery.com/topic/transportation-science/ten-nasa-inventions.htm

Now before I get labled a socialist or anything stupid like that. I identify myself as a libertarian but there are certian things that would not be developed in the free market. Who would pay for a large hadron collider? Now you may argue what good is smashing atoms? What if by learning to disassemble atoms we can start building them how we want? We could then have replicators? Well if we did have that then socialism/communism is the form of society that would come about very much like Star Trek.

Science? You mean engineering, surely? Engineering development payed for by investors and entrepreneurs and the like.

Sione

You typed that comment on a computer that requires a great deal of science to produce… no amount of “tinkering” can produce the kind of miniaturization needed for a PC.

The Solvay conferences on physics and chemistry were begun by Ernest Solvay, the Belgian who developed a process for making soda ash, and were responsible, in part, for development of the quantum theory, among other advances.

In brief, what Solvay did was bring together great minds to see what fruits could be obtained by directing their attention to outstanding problems. Note all the famous names who attended: Planck, Einstein, Lorentz, Rutherford, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Curie, Pauli, Dirac, and so on.

The table marked “Solvay conferences on physics” reveals a pecular pattern: Long gaps between conferences which coincide with two major wars, both started by governments, of course. So not only did government not sponsor these importance conferences but also it got in the way. Then, once the problems of quantum theory were worked out, government proceded to exploit the new knowledge by sucking talent and resources away from potentially beneficial lines of work and directing these toward the development of nuclear weapons and other such wasteful technologies.

Indeed, “we have seen how the public funding of science tends to distort its results”.

Pure scientific research should be funded by philanthropy, just as the opera is.

http://www.parc.com/about/milestones.html/

Goddard:

http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal100/goddard.htm

Teflon:

http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=2230654&KC=&FT=E

Aerogels (this one is hilarious as it was invented on a bet):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel

X-Rays:

http://books.google.com/books?id=hYVrAAAAMAAJ&dq=isbn:0674833392&cd=1