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
