When ‘Back To Basics’ Leads To Breakthroughs In Science

(James Kelleher/The Orange County Register)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Two examples of researchers finding amazing things by reconsidering the fundamentals.

Sometimes scientists need to take a fresh look at fundamentals to improve familiar materials. That means getting down to the basic molecular and atomic structures.

When a research group that calls itself “Liquid Stone” recently did that with cement, it found that what scientists thought they knew about the fundamental structure of that ubiquitous material just isn’t so. One team member likens the implications of their new understanding of that structure to the boost biologists got when they discovered the basic structure of the DNA molecule.

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