Well knowledge of different particles and detection has allowed us to develop all kinds of scanners and sensors — especially in the realm of medical physics (x-rays!).
Additionally, of course, Tim Berners-Lee developed the World-Wide Web as a way of managing information at CERN. I’d say that that’s probably had the largest commercial impact of any offshoot of particle physics research…
without quantum mechanics we wouldn’t have mobile phones, and SatNavs wouldn’t be able to pinpoint our exact locations – they’d be out by a long shot! Particle physics led to the World Wide Web being created at Cern as Ollie said as well as particle accelerators being used in cancer treatments
I think that the most direct impact is in the medical diagnostic equipment you find in a hospital which are based on research in particle physics.
As Oliver said the Web was developed at CERN as a protocol to easily exchange information between CERN and the home institutes of the physicists working there. So is a by product of research on particle physics which I think is the important message about doing research.
Nobody knows what will be invented until they do!
Going to the Moon for many people was considered a waste of money. It actually made a lot of people work hard in order to achieve a big goal. Nobody assumed the microwave would be developed in that way, but I assure you that nobody would have worked so hard if the only goal was to develop the microwave instead of sending men to the Moon. The big goal, working at the edge of science and of what is currently doable is what motivate people to give their maximum (and work unpaid during nights and weekends!)
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