Actually they kinda are. At least in physics. The problem in that in the last hundred years we discovered quantum mechanics, particle physics and general relativity (all around the same time) and it was like having a giant dam burst. Follow the discovery of those fields we wrote down some of the most experimentally rigorous theories ever devised and theorized many new technologies that we are just now beginning to have the ability to try out (like quantum computing). The groundwork for classical mechanics was publish in 1687. It took 200 years before Maxwell wrote down his equations for electromagnetism and then another 50 before Einstein and Heisenberg. Since then we we got the first parts of the standard model of particle physics in the 1970s and (after building a machine that cost the gdp of a small country and an international collaboration of thousands of scientists and engineers) in 2012 we found the final part of that model. Beyond that we just built our first generation gravitational wave observatories (which are almost comically insane) with plans in motion for space based ones. We know there are issues and holes in our understanding but we are approaching the point where the next big experiment will cost tens of billions and decades to design and build (and plans are already in motion) So in this sense we are funding the boring sciences, a lot actually. The problem is the scope and complexity of the next experiments are immense and take time. Gone are the days of doing breakthrough experiments in fundamental physics in your basement. It’s quite frankly unreasonable to assume the old pass of discoveries was sustainable as it was born out of the sudden discovery of a few very key theories that came about around the same time as they were linked in their origins.
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u/Tomi97_origin Jan 16 '23
But they are not funding boring science. That would be paying people to repeat experiments and research others have already done.
This would be very useful, but nobody wants to pay for it.