Theory vs practicality

nyarlothothep

This is going to be a bit vague but here goes...

In my experience, theory or the pursuit of theoretical knowledge with no immediate or obvious practical benefit seems to get written off by people. While practicality, practical applications and the like are very important to the functioning of society, I believe that theoretical pursuits are unfairly maligned. Without theory in many disciplines you wouldn't have the same rate of progress, in fact theory directly feeds into practice and enhances it immeasurably.

For example I think Telsa was a better engineer than Edison because he applied theoretical knowledge, in this case maths whereas Edison was concerned with here and now solutions and so ignored theory, as was noted by Telsa. Telsa was the better engineer overall because his inventions were more grounded in theory, gave us a better understanding of nature and were more efficient, for example the AC adapter.

Imo, without a good knowledge of theory one stumbles blindly into the future, in any discipline. The power of theory comes from the fact that it transcends time and place. By applying this quality of theory to real life you get a better understanding of where things are going and how they function the way they do.