>just a place to burn taxpayer's dollars
Still, there may be other uses for a "linear motor designed from first principles and miniaturized" (to paraphrase). And $1,500 to help train the student-engineer might be a bargain.
Yes professor, it may be a bargain but I suspect Duke Research now holds a patent application on that little motor... I seriously doubt that the spin-offs will trickle down quickly or inexpensively. Research funded with taxpayer moneys should be "public domain / free" with the special exception of National Security research and even then the patents should be in the Federal domain where licensing can rebuild the funding provided by the taxpayer.
Now, grants from private companies... that's all part of a healthy commercial economy. My point is that in my opinion Federal moneys should not be granted for non-Federal needs. It is often difficult to make a distinction regarding such investments, but with $16T in Federal debt, with the worlds' free economies rocking from overspending, and with unemployment and underemployment looming at critical areas, the Feds need to be a better steward of the taxpayer. But, that is only my opinion.
In my 5 years in the military and my 1 year in educational research, I have seen billion$ in taxpayers moneys burned for no particularly good reason other than the money was there to be burned.
@Ravenous:
First I'd say if there was never any of this stupid research, we wouldn't have silicon or even valves. Secondly I'd guess most graduate level or pre-doctoral research is really for training the scientists/engineers/mathematicians/whatevertheyare, not actually producing anything concrete. You need the people to achieve something later.
Edison, Telsa, Marconi, Farnsworth, and others were driven primarily by private investments after WWI. There has come about a general expectation that public funding is a good thing, but in reality this is just a way for governments to control and direct free institutions. Market driven opportunities are superior to government driven ones but often the government moneys are easier to obtain since corporations are looking for profit driven research. Profit driven research such as the old Bell Labs were quite good at producing benefits for the general public - such as the transistor. Valves (tubes) were commercialized by RCA. Telsa's wireless and HV research was supported by GE. TI patented the first IC. The list goes on...
- Ray