Progress

Progress is extremely important to us. Oliver Holmes once said concerning progress, “the great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” This statement helps us understand that we can have a purpose in life. If we look at the progress of computer science during this last century, we see that technological advances are pushing forward like a freight train. It is important to continue to expand our levels of scientific research. Most nations have relied primarily on government research as our means for scientific advances. Now some countries, including the United States of America, are pushing for incentives to expand private research. This opens the door for many interesting questions to be answered. Some scientific discoveries may not yet have a known application. However, some day these discoveries may be combined to create an application that would not have been discovered without first finding these unknown applied discoveries. This is why we also need to give incentives to scientists to answer interesting questions that may not have immediate application. It is good to know that progress is in our grasp and only we can stop ourselves.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/02/09/bittermann.france.r.and.d.cnn?iref=videosearch