Knowledge and Technology: Sharing With Society

Education and basic research are large costs to society, which governments, in general, accept as a necessary long-term investment. Still, it is fair to ask how this investment can be used to the best overall benefit for society. Many excellent reports and talks [1–5] describe how basic research, motivated by “curiosity” — the desire to extend our understanding of nature — contributes as much to innovation as do the applied sciences, which focus on solving specific problems. Both stimulate industry and advance technology. Consider the core technologies of high energy particle physics. Accelerator applications range from killing bacteria and treating cancer, to welding and cutting, hardening materials, reducing harmful gas emissions from thermal power plants, and much more. Particle detectors are not only ubiquitous in medical imaging; they are also used, for example, by volcanologists and archaeologists to image sites of potential interest. Computer simulation toolkits developed for particle physics have become essential in other fields, including medicine, aerospace, and nano-science. Complex instruments and cutting-edge technologies are required for the construction and operation of accelerators and intricate detectors, as well as for managing the wealth of data they produce. When existing technologies are inadequate to meet requirements, developments are triggered that often give rise to technological innovations. Most famously, the World Wide Web, which was invented at CERN in the late 1980s to allow automatic sharing of information for scientists, has revolutionized global communication with enormous social and economic impact. Three decades later, data-handling and analysis needs for research at the LHC continue to push forward the evolution of worldwide distributed grid computing, bringing benefits to bio-computing and health sciences, astrophysics, environmental studies, and others.