The Linguistic Culture-2 (british media) (1157929), страница 28
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When in the late 18 th and the early 19 th centuries new ideas andPPPPtechnology demanded new approaches and teamwork, the American Association for theAdvancement of Science was founded (1848.In 1863 the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was organized. The creation of theAcademy originated from the immediate practical problems of the time of the Civil War. It alsoreflected the fact that at that time the US was beginning to emerge as a technological country.
0.The Academy created departments and bureaus related to scientific and technological problems(the Geological Survey, the National Bureau of Standards, the US Weather Bureau, the PatentOffice, etc.). The need for hands-on scientific instruction led to the organization of scientificschools and centers of learning and research (at Yale and Harvard Universities), and theMassachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.1861).American political leaders’ welcomed the scientists from other countries.
Among them theinventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell from Scotland, a developer of alternatingcurrent electrical systems Charles Steinmetz from Germany, the creator of television cameraVladimir Zworykin. The serb Nikola Tesla went to the U.S. in 1884, where he invented brushlesselectrical motor based on rotating magnetic fields.. The challenges of World War I had a far-reaching effect on the development of science in theUSA. During the war and after it American universities produced the great number of welltrained scientists and engineers. With the introduction of graduate schools into Americaneducation scientific research began to play a major role in many universities. American industrybegan to have a scientific foundation; several of the larger industries established researchlaboratories of international level.
The Federal Government also developed a number ofscientific agencies. Besides during World War I and especially during World War II a lot ofleading European scientists, many of them of Jewish descent, fled to America from the regimesof their countries. One of the first to do so was Albert Einstein. After him a good percentage ofGermany’s theoretical physics community left for the US as well This circumstance gaveAmerican science in general and the American academy in particular a mighty boost.In the post-war era the US began to occupy a position of unchallenged leadership, being oneof the few industrial countries not ravaged by war.
By the mid-1950s the research facilities in theUS were second to none, and scientists were drawn to the US for this reason alone. This led tothe situation that since 1950, Americans have won approximately half of the Nobel Prizes in thesciencesOne of the most spectacular-and controversial- accomplishments of US technology becamethe harnessing of nuclear energy. The concepts that led to the splitting of atom had beendeveloped by scientists of many countries before, but the conversion of these ideas into reality ofnuclear fission was accomplished in the US in the 1940s. The development of the atomic bomband its use against Japan in 1945 initiated the Atomic Age, a time of anxiety over weapons ofmass destruction that lasted through the Cold War.The sophisticated advantages of atomic energy led also to its peaceful uses in economy andmedicine. The first US commercial nuclear power plant of atomic energy started operating inIllinois in 1956.The US government gives huge investments to the science sector, which.
attract scientistsfrom all over the world to work there. The increasing number of American Nobel Prize winners(so far over 781) shows that the level of science and the organization of science management inthe US has become very high.. It is also worth mentioning that among the American Nobel Prizewinners there are not a few Russian former compatriots (over 60), who moved to the USAduring different periods of time and under different circumstances. Undoubtedly, they have left aconsiderable “Russian” trace both in American and the world science.Since World War II thanks to large-scale federal sponsorship the nature of academicresearch has gone a very substantial change in the humanities and social sciences as wellThe increased expenditure on scientific research and education propelled the United States tothe forefront of the international scientific community.
The American Academy of sciences(NAS), which occupies at present a whole quadrangle at Constitution Avenue in WashingtonD.C., has a great number of programs that include the participation in international scientificundertakings, the development of working relationships with other academies, cooperation inworldwide scientific project. Although it does not maintain direct research programs of its own,as, for example, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Academy plays its leading role invarious advisory governmental committees and determining scientific policy matters in general.The Academy also established a number of its Councils and Foundations.The National Research Council.
NRC was intended to strengthen and enlarge the role ofthe Academy in public affairs by adding to its staff a much larger body representing a very widecross-section of American scientists and engineers and acting at the same time as the center forintersociety scientific activities.The National Science Foundation (NSF) is responsible for the progress of science acrossall disciplines: astronomical, space, earth and ocean sciences; programs concerned withbiological and social sciences; investigations in engineering; encouraging the training ofengineers at undergraduate and graduate levels through grants.
NSF sponsors work inmathematical sciences, computer research and chemistry; manages and funds the US activities inAntarctica. NSF also administers programs for exchange with other countries of students,scholars and teachers.The American Physical Society (APS) pursues the mission “to advance and diffuse theknowledge of physics”, to be active in public and governmental affairs, and in the internationalphysics community. There is a long list of the names of prominent American physicists awardedwith different national and international prizes: Gorge Pullin working on gravitational waves,Kris Larsen, studying astronomy and black holes, David Landau, the Director of the Center forSimulational Physics at the University of Georgia, Timothy Gay with his group investigatingpolarized electron scattering chiral molecules (e.g.
DNA) and many others.The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964 as an organization ofdistinguished engineers, sharing with the National Academy its responsibility for advising theFederal government.There are also in the USA scientific organizations formally classified as “independentresearch institutes “ but nicknamed as “Think Tanks” or “Brain Factories”. The main aims ofTT or BF, attached to the Federal. government and its Agencies by annual contracts, are nottraditional research and development but long-range thinking and producing analysis ideasnecessary for policy-making, problem solving and decision-making. The largest of the “thinktanks” is the RAND Corporation (Research and Development).
RAND employs a lot ofprominent scholars: mathematicians, chemists, physicists, social scientists, computer experts andothers. The most important researches carried out by RAND are connected with military tasks.A great part of Research and Development is done at the US universities, oriented towardnot only instructing undergraduates but also toward research, sponsoredmainlythroughcontract systems. At present the US universities are involved in two kinds of research.Department research is carried out by the faculty in the traditional academic pattern. Itis supervised by a professor, assisted by graduate students and technicians. Such research is notbudgeted by outside sources and referred to “as little science”.Big science research is mainly funded by outside sources: the Federal governmentagencies, NSF, private business enterprises, different non-profit institutions and eveninternational agencies, e.g.
UNESCO. Most of the research at the best private universities suchas MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Johns Hopkins University and others isdone by the grantees of above mentioned bodies .As one of the means of aiding the progress ofscience and engineering they offer three-year graduate Fellowships to the brightest graduates andstudents. Among those who have received this Fellowship are 9 Nobel Prize Winners, manymembers of the National Academy of Sciences and Space research. A considerable part of themoney comes from the Pentagon, which remains the biggest supporter of new technologies anddevelopments.
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