Are Physicists Motivated by Real-World Applications of Their Research?

[cscott]

"I just formulated Bernoulli's principle! What are some applications?"

Do physicists ask/answer these kind of questions? Moreover, are physicists paid to answer these kind of questions or am I thinking too much like an engineer?

I'm thinking along the lines on John Bardeen et al. with their work on the transister, but other there many more examples?

 

[Claude Bile]

Generally, scientists working in applied physics will have some sort of practical goal in mind (Usually dictated by their funding source). If a particular theory looks like in may aid them in acheiving that goal, then it would be used, rather than looking at an equation and thinking 'How can we make a device using this?'.

This is my personal experience in the field of lasers and applications, I hesitate to make sweeping generalisations because it is likely other fields are quite different.

Claude.