“It would have been difficult to predict that the investigations of Maxwell, Lorentz, and Einstein in electromagnetic theory would lead to improvements in communications,” he pointed out. “Few would have expected that Schrödinger and Heisenberg’s quantum mechanics would lead to the transistor and computers,” or that “Townes’s work on millimeter radiation would give us laser surgery.”
Deux universitaires européens, Len Fisher et Ibo van de Poel, soulignent eux aussi combien les fruits des efforts fournis par les scientifiques, afin de comprendre les lois fondamentales de la nature, constituent la base des innovations technologiques.