Curiosity-driven research

Curiosity-driven research, a term 1 prefer to fundamental or basic , involves following the trail wherever it may lead and, in Isaac Newton s words (when he was asked how he made his discoveries) by always thinking unto them. 1 keep the subject constantly before me and wait until the first dawnings open little by little into full light . The central motive, curiosity, has been rendered cynically into verse by no less a master than A.E. Housman ... 

The prioritization of research objectives and classes is is not necessarily what a curiosity-driven researcher likes to hear. However, these are Government-wide priorities. They apply to all participants in the AMPP, but not all agencies have exactly comparable missions. AMPP research carried out with NSF support will probably have a more fundamental flavor, on average, than R D sponsored by a mission agency. Objectives for 1993 within the NSF component are... 

The electron paramagnetic resonance effect was discovered in 1944 by E. K. Zavoisky in Kazan, in the Tartar republic of the then-USSR, as an outcome of what we would nowadays call a purely curiosity-driven research program apparently not directly related to WW-II associated technological developments (Kochelaev and Yablokov 1995). However, a surplus of radar components following the end of the war did boost the development of EPR spectroscopy, in particular, after the X-band ( X meaning to be kept a secret from the enemy) was entered in Oxford, U.K., in 1947 (Bagguley and Griffith 1947). 

As scientists and engineers, natural self-assembly processes represent a tremendous resource, which we can use to create our own miniature materials and devices. Our endeavors are informed by hundreds of years of curiosity-driven research interested in the natural world. Our toolbox is further expanded by modem synthetic chemistry which extends beyond the realm of natural molecules. We can also create artificial environments to control and direct assembly and use computer-based tools and simulations to model and predict self-assembly pathways and their resulting protein structures. Many researchers believe we can use these modern tools to simplify, improve, and refine assembly processes. We have much to do in order to reach this ambitious goal but the next 10 years are likely to be filled with exciting discoveries and advances as self-assembling polypeptide materials move from the laboratory to the clinic or the manufacturing assembly line. 

In the next few decades, several problems of considerable societal interest will emerge with a central theme of the balance between societal objectives and scientific curiosity-driven research, both of which are very important for the future. Three problems of key importance in the area of observations and modeling are ... 

Research agendas should be driven in part by societal needs (e.g., human health), but basic, curiosity-driven research funding must be protected and allowed to thrive. 

I would like someone to fund this. One million dollars is about a dime per person from New York City, not that most New Yorkers would give a dime to know the value of tc to any number of digits. I m concerned about the attitudes toward curiosity-driven research, for example, by Senate funding committees. To me, it is very important to main-... 

Pasteur s scientific achievement illustrates the close interplay of fundamental and applied advances that occur in many scientific fields. Political scientist Donald Stokes has termed this arena of application-driven scientific research as Pasteur s quadrant, to distinguish it from purely curiosity-driven research (as in modern particle physics), advance by trial and error (for example, Edison s early work on the electric light), and the simple cataloging of properties and behaviors (as in classical botany and zoology). The study of applied science is a detailed examination of Pasteur s quadrant. 

Bringing the power of IT advances to bear will greatly enhance both targeted design dirough multidisciplinary team efforts and decentralized curiosity-driven research of individual investigators. Both approaches are important, but they will depend upon IT resources in different ways. 

Finding Federal research support for individual investigators and for curiosity-driven research is crucial for advances in basic theory, formalisms, methods, applications, and understanding. 

Curiosity-driven research rarely hits a technology target on its own without guidance the rate of innovation can be very slow. 

The present review is aimed at describing the state-of-the-art, for the period January-December 2014, of two pillar classes of phosphorus-containing compounds, the phosphonium salts and ylides. The importance of these derivatives is revealed by the very high number of references cited herein. For the Reader s convenience, topics are organized to offer an introductory survey on the methods of preparation and characterisation of both types of compounds, followed by an analysis of applicative and curiosity driven research. A special section is devoted to phosphonium-based ionic liquids (PILs). 

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