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A comment on The relationship between mindset and getting old. Parent comment

Re:The relationship between mindset and getting old by majewsky on Monday June 12, 2017 @04:14AM (#14535786)
> most working on very obscure problems spraying "shittonium on silicon 111" or making no progress in various theories of everything.

That's the problem with foundational research: It always looks obscure and impractical until suddenly there's a huge breakthrough out of nowhere. Same dynamic as with startups, where 99% will never make a significant mark of any kind, while 1% change the world forever. And you cannot know in advance which startup (or which foundational research) falls into which category.

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Re:The relationship between mindset and getting old by scottlocklin on Thursday June 15, 2017 @05:12PM (#14564410)
Surface science (shittonium on silicon 111) has been promising to explain catalysis for 40 years now... it's still important to do, makes the chips run faster, but it's usually not considered real foundational.
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