Scientists have a responsibility to inform the public about the good that basic scientific research has done and can do for humanity, and to educate everyone about the wonderful workings of Nature. An extremely important point to get across, in my view, is that nobody can predict what benefits will come from pure research: basic studies aimed at understanding Nature have, time and time again, led to unanticipated applications of enormous significance. I hope this book goes some way towards addressing this issue.

In recent years scientific research has become highly commercialised, even in the academic laboratories of our great universities, many of whose ideals regarding freedom of pursuit of knowledge for its own sake have been tarnished. Government funding of pure scientific research is pitifully poor world-wide and it is disgracefully dwarfed by the tremendous financial support that is available for military research. Even when funding for basic research is forthcoming, some areas of gigantic human significance still fail to receive the funding that they deserve, not to mention those research programmes that have to be aborted because they are grossly underfunded. Who can put a price on the curiosity of Michael Faraday, which gave rise to almost the whole of today's electrical industry? What financial worth were the thoughts of Louis Pasteur, whose insatiable desire to interpret Nature contributed much of today's understanding, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases?