As we know, X-rays are wonderful diagnostic tools that allow medical personnel to peer inside our bodies to diagnose regions cloaked by flesh. They also have a wide variety of nonmedical applications. For example airport security people check bags for potential weapons.
X-rays were accidentally discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen at the University of Wurzburg on November 5, 1895. He was using a cathode ray tube (like in the back of your TV or computer monitor) to study electrical discharges in gas. His device was covered with an opaque layer of cardboard yet it lit up a luminescent screen covered with a barium salt. Soon he found that these mysterious X-rays could expose photographic film and had the penetrative powers we find so useful in medical diagnostics and other applications.
The potential hazards of X-ray radiation were not known until many years later. At the time the only hazard that anyone seemed concerned about was the possibility that a peeping Tom might figure out a nefarious way to use X-rays. Proper Victorian ladies were duly horrified.
Not suspecting their hazards, people very quickly began to use X-rays for any conceivable purpose, including medical diagnostics. Despite the slight risk from exposure to an X-ray overdose, countless lives have been saved by these medical diagnostics. For his role in their discovery, Roentgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901.
Today we often support research with a specific medical goal, such as curing cancer, aids, or some other disease. Having value such efforts should be supported. We however also need to support basic scientific research that has no obvious practical application. X-rays provide a good example why. When doing his work, medical diagnostics was perhaps the farthest thing from Roentgen's mind. Studying electrical discharge properties of gasses, he discovered by chance that the device he was using produced X-rays. Roentgen spawned a very useful diagnostic tool while doing some basic research in physics. Would a medical researcher given the specific assignment of finding a tool to diagnose broken arms have done as well?
Misguided people often want to support applied research at the expense of basic scientific research with no immediate applications. However without the basic research applied research would not be possible. Why? Two reasons come to mind. The first is serendipity. (See above.) Serendipity and accidental discoveries play a much more important role in science than most people realize. These accidental discoveries often lead to applications that could not have been imagined when initiating the research.
A second reason is the unity of knowledge. Scientific (and other) knowledge needs to advance on all fronts somewhat equally. Our computers and other modern electronic toys (including X-ray machines) could not have been developed without basic research in physics. Electronic applications require among many other things understanding electric currents, which requires understanding electrons, which are parts of atoms. Electronic devices also require silicon semiconductors, which again leads to requiring an understanding of atoms. Democritus first suggested atoms might exist over 2000 years ago. Without the two millennia of basic research in physics and chemistry since this first suggestion, these modern applications would not be possible.
When society supports basic research, we are investing in the future not looking for immediate applications. Some projects will never have applications; others will have undreamed of practical results. We won't know in advance which is which. Next time you or a family member need a medical X-ray, thank basic research from 100 years ago not applied medical research.
What useful applications will today's impractical basic research lead to in the next century - or millennium?
