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Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

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Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#21

Post by eru »

antoineMoPa wrote: post #5
marcusverus wrote: post #3

Earlier 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…

Gravity keeps bank on the ground, thus physics funding is essential to the finance world. Imagine all banks floating away.

Just tether them with the blockchain?

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#22

Post by Iv »

sbdmmg wrote: post #2

The 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…

I work in tech and any company with a website calls itself a tech company.

Saying you are a physics company as soon as you use advanced materials does not seem that far-fetched from where I stand.

And the criterion of "these companies competitive advantage depend partly on recent physics research" is a pretty good one that may indeed include drilling companies and geological exploration.

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#23

Post by killjoywashere »

wott wrote: post #20
airstrike wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 33% physics, 33% chemistry, and 33% engineering How about financing investments, accounting, sales, supply-chain logistics and managing the business?

They obviously make up the remaining 1%.

Hah! We finally found the one-percenters!

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#24

Post by sriku »

sbdmmg wrote: post #2

The 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…

Maybe measuring the contribution of the economy to physicists would give a better indication? .. since physics education and it's application to employment is easily measured and accounted compared to the, say, the hundreds of trillions in value added by Sir Isaac Newton.

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#25

Post by skribbj »

I'm hopefully a future physicist and the first to defend its importance but this kind of argument seems quite bad faith to me.

"Physics-based industries are those that rely heavily on expertise in physics. These include oil and gas extraction, nuclear fuel processing, and various forms of manufacturing like fibre optics, lighting equipment, office machinery, cars, ships and armaments."

Oil extraction, gas, and ships. Really? Sure, I get it, these areas wouldn't be possible without prior physics research, and present physicists will create new economic opportunities in the future; but blindly inhereting these fields' economic signifiance to physics seems incorrect. In other news, mathematics worth more than 80% of EU economy - these industries include finance, business, engineering, computing, and entertainment.

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#26

Post by perl4ever »

airstrike wrote: post #19
sbdmmg wrote: post #2

The 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…

> 33% physics, 33% chemistry, and 33% engineering How about financing investments, accounting, sales, supply-chain logistics and managing the business?

What about human resources and project coordination?!

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#27

Post by ben509 »

haecceity wrote: post #11
antoineMoPa wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gravity keeps bank on the ground, thus physics funding is essential to the finance world. Imagine all banks floating away.

Funny. More seriously though gravity would keep banks on the ground regardless if we study it or not. So physics research doesn't really contribute in this case :(

But we only know it does because of physics, and without knowing there isn't a risk of banks floating away, people would be afraid of building banks. And, of course, mechanics generally are what enable the analysis of large static loads.

Same issue with how studying life expectancy and mortality allows you to quantify the risk of death, injury and disease, thus enabling life insurance and health insurance.

The problem with the claim "this is all physics" is that, yes, Newton wrote down the original formulas for mechanics, but those had to be translated into all the engineering practices to be useful. Most of the economic value comes from engingeers who have mastered nth-order derivations of the original equations.

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#28

Post by airstrike »

perl4ever wrote: post #26
airstrike wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 33% physics, 33% chemistry, and 33% engineering How about financing investments, accounting, sales, supply-chain logistics and managing the business?

What about human resources and project coordination?!

I thought about HR after hitting the reply button but figured there was no way I was going to think of every function! I cleared my conscience by mentally bucketing all of those under "managing the business" ;-)

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#29

Post by bryanrasmussen »

sbdmmg wrote: post #2

The 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…

Some of that stuff the retail industry is selling must have involved physics at one point.

Re: Physics worth more to EU economy than retail and financial services, says study

#30

Post by pergadad »

sbdmmg wrote: post #2

The 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…

Not an unusual lobby study. Then they turn around and tell everyone to teach more physics in school and invest in the field/studies. I've seen similar ones for very different professions with similar outcomes. A but unusual to see it for a field of study on its own though, I guess they have a strong lobby somewhere.
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