Why can't Java generic be used for static methods?

Question

As the title states, why can't Java generics be used for static methods?

Answer 1

<T> is the generic type of the class. You cannot refer to it from a static context, since each instance of the class may have a different T (similar to why you can't reference instance members from static methods). You could, however, give the method itself a generic type:

public static <S> S test (S s) {
    // code...
}