Question: It's hard to imagine modern American society without electricity. We use it for transportation, communication, heat, light, and many other necessities and amenities of life. Yet the people who gave us this marvelous invention were not primarily concerned with developing better lamps or modes of transportation. Volta's first battery was built to duplicate the organs found in electric fish. Scientific discoveries, even those that bring enormous practical benefit to humanity, can come from unexpected sources. What does this tell you about the problem of allocating government funds for research? Can you imagine trying to justify funding of Galvani's experiments on frogs' legs to our modern government panel on the grounds that it would lead to something useful? Would a federal research grant designed to produce better lighting systems have produced the battery (and, eventually, the electric light), or would it more likely have led to an improvement in the oil lamp? How much funding do you think should go to offbeat areas (on the chance that they may produce a large payoff) as compared to projects that have a good chance of producing small but immediate improvements in the quality? Need Assignment Help?