dee wrote
Serious note: I'm all for scientific progress and the likes, but what does this all mean to us as an end user? Is my velcro going to be more sticky? Will my sunglasses block more UV's?
This is why it's really important that free enquiry be allowed and you don't have politicians saying things like: "Study alternative energy, cos that's really useful." You never know what the consequences of these discoveries are going to be. As vic said, Newton didn't predict humans being able to make machines that could send people hundreds and thousands of kilometers to reach a ball of rock in space precisely - yet that's what his work allowed among a great many other things.
Einstein figured out that matter must contain insanely vast quantities of energy - far beyond anything we'd imagined up until then. Naturally the first thing that got built was a bomb of never before seen power. But we also have nuclear ice-breakers, power stations, and one day we might still use nuclear power to drive a space craft to the relativistic speeds necessary to cross the spaces between stars.
So the question, "what is this for?" can be answered: "Who knows?" But whatever the new physics does (if it happens), it will have implications for engineering.
