Science superpowers
JAN 14, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024002
The New Yorker : In the summer of 2008, the journal Nature published a short, illuminating essay that tracked the global migration of scientific research over the centuries, as empires rose and fell.The center of world science, for instance, was in France in 1740, before it moved to Germany, then Britain, and, later, America, carrying with it, in each case, a major dimension of global leadership.The authors discovered that great shifts in global scientific leadership follow a clear pattern: “Each former scientific power, especially during the initial stages of decline, had the illusion that its system was performing better than it was, overestimating its strength and underestimating innovation elsewhere. The elite could not imagine that the centre would shift.” Related Link China: The end of the science superpowers Nature
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
