Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
1–10 of 53 posts
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#2The conclusion of this study is not clear at all to me. From reading their executive summary, the CEBR researchers seem to take the global value added (GVA) of any physics-based industry, and consider it as a something like a contribution of physics to the society.
That sounds like a gross overestimation to me.
As an example, they consider "Extraction of crude petroleum" as a physics-based industry. Naively I would consider that industry at least 33% physics, 33% chemistry, and 33% engineering. Aren't they largely overestimating their conclusion by neglecting chemistry and egineering?
Disclaimer: I am a former physicist. I really think that science funding is vital to Europe, that this kind of studies should help supporting the field... I would just like to better understand how the EPS and CEBR got to such a clickbait title. I have the impression that this kind of article could actually undermine the credibility of all the contributions that Physics research is actually bringing to society at large.
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#3The conclusion of this study is not clear at all to me. From reading their executive summary, the CEBR researchers seem to take the global value added (GVA) of any physics-based industry, and consider it as a something like a contribution of physics to the society. That sounds like a gross overestimation to me. As an example, they consider "Extraction of crude petroleum" as a physics-based industry. Naively I would c…
They're correct in that the production of crude is not possible without the physics. It is a necessary input, ergo physics unlocks that economic activity.
It sounds like your concern is that all three fields of Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry could claim this output, which would be odd, because if every field did this, their combined 'value added' would be many times the total GDP, since their contributions overlap, like you mentioned. That doesn't matter, because we're not concerned about measuring the GDP with this method (if we were, we would have to divide credit like you mentioned) just the objective contribution of a single field.
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#4The conclusion of this study is not clear at all to me. From reading their executive summary, the CEBR researchers seem to take the global value added (GVA) of any physics-based industry, and consider it as a something like a contribution of physics to the society. That sounds like a gross overestimation to me. As an example, they consider "Extraction of crude petroleum" as a physics-based industry. Naively I would c…
They're correct in that the production of crude is not possible without the physics. It is a necessary input, ergo physics unlocks that economic activity. It sounds like your concern is that all three fields of Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry could claim this output, which would be odd, because if every field did this, their combined 'value added' would be many times the total GDP, since their contributions overl…
By that logic retail and financial services could claim the same output. All of these physicists and companies have to use them to survive in the modern world.
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#5The conclusion of this study is not clear at all to me. From reading their executive summary, the CEBR researchers seem to take the global value added (GVA) of any physics-based industry, and consider it as a something like a contribution of physics to the society. That sounds like a gross overestimation to me. As an example, they consider "Extraction of crude petroleum" as a physics-based industry. Naively I would c…
They're correct in that the production of crude is not possible without the physics. It is a necessary input, ergo physics unlocks that economic activity. It sounds like your concern is that all three fields of Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry could claim this output, which would be odd, because if every field did this, their combined 'value added' would be many times the total GDP, since their contributions overl…
Gravity keeps bank on the ground, thus physics funding is essential to the finance world. Imagine all banks floating away.
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're correct in that the production of crude is not possible without the physics. It is a necessary input, ergo physics unlocks that economic activity. It sounds like your concern is that all three fields of Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry could claim this output, which would be odd, because if every field did this, their combined 'value added' would be many times the total GDP, since their contributions overl…
By that logic retail and financial services could claim the same output. All of these physicists and companies have to use them to survive in the modern world.
Yup. Every field that is a necessary input. Of course, physics could count every company that produced oil, whereas financial services could only count the specific activities that were financed. Giving Exxon a loan for a new office building does not mean you get credit for all of their oil production revenues.
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#7As a physics graduate I would have considered this self evident. Of course we pretty much single handedly run the economy. Along with our sidekicks [0] in the other hard sciences we invented it.
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#8The conclusion of this study is not clear at all to me. From reading their executive summary, the CEBR researchers seem to take the global value added (GVA) of any physics-based industry, and consider it as a something like a contribution of physics to the society. That sounds like a gross overestimation to me. As an example, they consider "Extraction of crude petroleum" as a physics-based industry. Naively I would c…
They're correct in that the production of crude is not possible without the physics. It is a necessary input, ergo physics unlocks that economic activity. It sounds like your concern is that all three fields of Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry could claim this output, which would be odd, because if every field did this, their combined 'value added' would be many times the total GDP, since their contributions overl…
I would argue that physicists themselves do not unlock this specific economic activity as they are rarely directly involved in crude extraction. As a field, it is too far removed. It would be like saying mathematicians are instrumental to crude extraction. Sure, they provide the scientific/theoretical basis for that work, but the actual execution is performed by engineers and various other applied experts.
Unlike what most people think, engineering is only partly based on physical/mathematical models. In fact, much of engineering is based on heuristics and empirical knowledge/know-how, and some of this knowledge isn't quantitative and it's not in the province of most physicists.
The difference between physics and engineering is actually quite vast.
I think the economic activity referred to in the article is around large-scale physics activities by organizations like CERN.
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#9As a physics graduate I would have considered this self evident. Of course we pretty much single handedly run the economy. Along with our sidekicks [0] in the other hard sciences we invented it. [0] https://www.xkcd.com/435
This is probably a PR campaign by CERN, though. They're going through a rough patch after discovering little and needing new money for new experiments.
Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study
#10The idea that the (whole economy) = (physics + retail + financials + other stuff) seems like somebody made a type error. You can't just add a research field to industries. I guess you could draw out 2 separate pies: 1 of GDP by industry and 1 by "field" but you're still comparing apples to oranges.