New Comment
Backing up the Oppenheimer quote with an anecdote:
I chat with my colleagues in the Pure Math department here about our motivations for doing research, and for almost all of them it just about getting paid to do something they enjoy, and they pick their research area based on beauty and enjoyment. Pure Math probably has a sampling bias towards this sort of person though.
Personally, I've found it increasingly distasteful over the last few years, as I have been thinking more about how I can impact the world with my research.
Did you and the other scientists not stop to consider the implications of what you were creating? — Roger Robb
When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb— Oppenheimer