Question: Is your work really necessary to make our world a safer or better place?

Paul Stevenson answered on 16 Mar 2010:

Mine by itself is probably not necessary, but a lot of advances in areas far from mine (e.g. medical imaging, and the world wide web) came from nuclear physicists (like me) asking the basic questions about the way nature works and coming up with ways to answer those questions that turn out to be incredibly useful for making the world a better place.

To me, understanding the laws of nature better enriches our culture and humanity – it’s an extra bonus that a lot of what people in my field do ends up being of real practical benefit