Let&#x27;s review some history for the moment. Back in the 19th century &quot;egghead&quot; scientists conducted numerous lines of research into several subjects which were at the time considered to be extremely esoteric, the essence of pure, &quot;blue sky&quot; research. Some examples from that century would be: electromagnetism, particle physics, quantum mechanics, and gas laws.<p>As it turned out, understanding such things lead to lots of innovations which had not been anticipated beforehand. Everything from electric motors and lightbulbs to micro-processors, cell phones, internal combustion engines, fertilizer, and AIDS drugs. Those innovations built on the back of once pure scientific research have resulted in billions of years of human lives lived that would not have been other wise, and billions of years of lives lived in improved conditions (due to more food, cleaner water, greater wealth, and so on), literally tens of trillions of dollars per year of added economic activity due to those innovations and <i>quadrillions</i> of dollars of added value and increased wealth to human civilization. All due to egghead scientists studying stuff just because they were curious.<p>What will be the next set of breakthroughs? Where will it come from? How much value will they add? We don&#x27;t know, that&#x27;s why we continue to sustain and support our curiosity across such broad ranges of subjects.<p>Not only might breakthroughs come from surprising directions, but I think the scientists have more than earned it. Not everything we do needs to have some tangible return-on-investment back to some concrete bottom line on Earth in the near term.