I feel like I hear about this guy once every second

~~Aperture~~ Science! We do what we must because we can!

There's a good NPR podcast in the same vein as this: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/21/533840751/episode-779-shrimp-fight-club

It's about congressman talking about government waste and targeting the sciences. It's like, you don't get the "cool" applications without the "weird" research. I'm doing a horrible job describing it, but I thought it was a good listen.

And this is why science shouldn't be beheld to the whims of politicians and capitalists

I mean, why would a guy that started a car rental company know anything about radio waves?

Gotcha!

Did it Hertz when he realised the opposite, or did that happen after his time?

If you think about it, almost all computer-technology is radio. Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, radar, and cellular are literally radio. Meanwhile everything else runs on transistor tech developed and refined... for radios.

Our modern economy couldn't exist if people like Hertz and Maxwell didn't get to toy with their useless hobbies. But we can't rely on the curiosity of the leisure class anymore. Basic research is expensive, necessary, and a public good. I'm afraid that the Trump regime has already spoiled the secret sauce that makes America the technology leader of the world.

This may be an even better example than the positron. Originally a theoretical antimatter form of the common electron, with no practical application.

Turned out to be a vital tool for medical imaging. If you or someone you know has ever had a PET scan, now you know what the P stands for.

I mean, it would be some 25 years until the radio was invented. And Hertz' machine required a 30kV spark on a 2.5m meter long antenna with 2 solid 30cm zinc spheres, and his transmission range was something like "barely down the hall".

Not the most practical method.

this type of science-discovery to usefulness-realization latency is the norm, pretty sure Curie didn't envision nuclear power plants

He probably would have figured it out had he had time to evolve into Megahertz.