Science unshackled: how obscure, abstract, seemingly useless scientific research turned out to be the basis for modern life, by C. Renee James

As a researcher studying string theory, a highly abstract piece of mathematical physics thought to describe elementary particles, an inevitable dinner party question is what is it good for? I don’t think I’m alone in struggling to directly answer that question. Instead, the answer lies in establishing a historical context for the importance of pure, abstract and theoretical scientific research.