Kind of blue...

We come to you this month from on high, floating in a miasmic cloud of our own delight. Something rare has happened. Something very rare indeed.

Three little words. That’s all it took to snare our interest. Words that would ordinarily cause annoyance – anger even – in anyone following scientific discourse. But for us, when used to describe a piece of research, the words ‘no practical use’ are like a tonic. In an age where any kind of scientific endeavour has to have an economic imperative, how utterly delightful to find an example that not only fails to fall in line with this, but actively flies it’s face.

American mathematician Professor Curtis Cooper has identified a new prime number – and it is the largest ever found at a whopping 17-million digits. Quite an achievement, and so thought the BBC’s Today program as they interviewed him on his finding. It was during this interview that it came, the sentence that confirmed Professor Cooper as a true anti-hero. "I don't know,” he said “of any practical application of the fact that this number is prime.”

And that is what we find so beautiful – knowledge for knowledge sake. But to those naysayers who develop a cold sweat at the thought of what they undoubtedly refer to as “a researcher’s indulgence” we say this:  who is to say from where the next multi-million pound breakthrough is to come? No amount of political arrogance should stand in the way of our innate drive to understand. And if financial reward is what they seek, then even more reason not to curtail that drive.

However, if you are reading this and getting increasingly frustrated at our grasp – or lack of – on the reality of the current economic situation, then consider the origins of the term ‘Blue-Skies research’ its self. For this we have to thank an argument between a cardiovascular scientist and a prominent US politician. In 1976 Julius Comroe took umbridge at President Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defence after he dismissed basic research by claiming “I don’t care what makes the grass green!”. Comroe claimed that Wilson might just as well have said “I don't care what makes the sky blue!” – which of course was calculated to perfection, for Comroe had an ace up his sleeve in the form of a 19^th Century British physicist.

Citing the work of John Tyndall – Comroe unleashed a barrage of practical breakthroughs that had come from one apparently simple finding. In 1869 Tyndall explained the blue colour of the sky by using a glass tube into which he introduced certain vapours. In doing so, he also inadvertently uncovered many more discoveries – each with untold economic potential. He developed a test for optically pure air that was unable to develop bacteria, demonstrated how lung airways remove particles from inspired air before reaching the alveoli, amazingly Tyndall also discovered how penicillium bacteria could successfully destroy mould - 50 years before Fleming. He also showed how a light beam followed a curved route, leading to the later development of the flexible gastroscope and bronchoscope.

For Comroe, Tyndall's work proved to be the perfect argument for the fact that important discoveries are often curiosity-led rather than goal-driven. The US Congress – no doubt with a rush of dollar signs flashing before their eyes – became convinced and the funding of the newly termed ‘Blue Skies research’ continued.

And whilst a new prime number might not in and of itself be exciting to you – don’t judge it too harshly. Once considered the preserve of the abstract and theoretical, prime numbers are now invaluable to our economy in the most direct way imaginable. If you have ever purchased something online, you will have relied utterly on prime numbers. Public-key encryption – used to secure the exchange of online funds would be impossible if it were not for these stoic numerical heroes.