From Gianni de Fraja, paper in the current Rand Journal of Economics
Optimal public funding for
research: a theoretical analysis (pages 498–528)
Nelson's early work (1959)
already reports many examples of basic research projects that
illustrate these characteristics. Among the cases studied more recently,
Moody (1995)
describes in detail the numerous strands of basic research which
allowed the creation of the ubiquitous CD. A Global Positioning System
(GPS) navigation system would be far too inaccurate to be of any
practical use without corrections of gravitational effects central to
the theory of relativity (Haustein, 2009).
The abstract mathematical problem of covering a surface with tiles lies
at the foundation of our understanding and exploitation of
superconductors (Edelson, 1992).
Gauss's investigation into the distribution of prime numbers has led,
with the contributions of some of the best mathematical minds over the
course of two centuries, to the possibility of unbreakable cryptographic
codes, without which e-commerce would not be possible (du Satoy, 2003).10
