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China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

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Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#161

Post by rsj_hn »

Tharkun wrote: post #147
throwaway713 wrote: post #36

The quality debate about scientific merit aside, if the U.S. wants to remain "the best", then we need to incentivize the best scientists and researchers in other countries to come here and become U.S. citizens. A lot of famous physicists, mathematicians, and logicians have done this over the past 100 years. Unfortunately, the attractiveness of becoming a U.S. citizen is waning because (1) current U.S. policies on sci…

When the French executed Lavoisier, they said "the republic needs neither chemists nor scientists". The US seems to be of a similar mind at this point in time.

That's a bit unfair.

You are talking about an event in the Great Terror (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror), when thousands of people were executed by the Committee for Public Safety, both on the left and the right, as Robespierre descended into madness. Towards the end, he set up a festival in which he invented his own cult -- the cult of the Supreme Being, and posed as moses carrying the revelation of the Supreme Being from a mountain. That really started to freak people out.

Pronouncements from that era are not representative of French culture or thinking even a few months after the terror. For example, Napoleon was a great patron of science.

BTW, a fantastic source on the French Revolution is the revolutions podcast -- they cover it over 53 episodes

http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/

One of the more poignant episodes towards the end of the Great Terror was when, in one day, they executed a group of nuns whose only crime was living together communally, and a 16 year old pickpocket. Whereas before, the citizens were cheering on the Guillotine, towards the end, when the boy was beheaded, someone from the crowd shouted out "Please, no more children!"

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#162

Post by cm2187 »

badminton1 wrote: post #158
cm2187 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But none of what it takes for Chinese to posibly overtake one day is in place. Schools aren’t mass teaching chinese, chinese movies, music and authors aren’t captivating people’s mind, and there is already a modern latin (english), so learning chinese isn’t going to fix a problem people have, other than communicating with Chinese nationals who do not speak english.

More people are learning German in the EU now, and now there is also Brexit, which removes English as an official language there. Simultaneously, the role of the UK as a trade hub will be heavily diminished. I would not be surprised if in 50 years German surpassed English in the EU. China is heavily investing on Africa, so I would not be impressed if Africans start learning Mandarin more actively than they do now. Af…

I am not sure where you saw that German is the most popular language being learned in the EU.

The following report from the French ministry of education from 2014 (in french unfortunately) [1] states that in Europe, 94% of the students study english as a foreign language (high school and university). Then comes French (23%) and German and Spanish (19% each).

As for Brexit, I don’t think english is used as the main working language in the EU because of the UK’s infuence, just because it is the foreign language most people speak.

[1] http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid74880/l-apprentissage-des-la...

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#163

Post by adrianN »

pyrale wrote: post #152
goblekitepe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process of English becoming the global language has taken over 150 years. Massive cultural and economic forces have been at play to make English global. It's not a simple thing, and what will likely happen is language balkanization for a significant period of time before any seismic shift from English to Chinese which is unlikely to happen for a number of reasons regardless.

Over 150 years? It is a far fetched claim that the influence of english started in the 1870's. I would say it started 50-60 years ago at most.

It started with the rise of the British Empire. Pax Americana just helped solidify it. Even without an English speaking US, English would be about as popular as Mandarin: there are a billion Indians.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#164

Post by throwawa312312 »

ISL wrote: post #89
whatshisface wrote: post #2

> They document a rapid expansion between 2000 and 2016, as the Chinese share of global publications in physical sciences, engineering and math quadrupled. I really hate to risk being the guy who says "they will never best us," until they do, but in my field and many others Chinese papers are known to be of a lower quality standard and a lot more mill-like. This may come as a surprise to many, but the simple fact is…

In my branch of physics, the best Chinese papers are beginning to make leading contributions to their subfields. As it turns out, if you make a well-funded and sustained effort at something, you can get good at it. As an example, within my specialty: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0431-5

Ditto in Machine Learning; although this is mostly either from HK (CUHK-Sensetime-Alibaba), or from MSR-A. I haven't seen much come out of mainstream chinese universities.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#165

Post by eastendguy »

pyrale wrote: post #152
goblekitepe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process of English becoming the global language has taken over 150 years. Massive cultural and economic forces have been at play to make English global. It's not a simple thing, and what will likely happen is language balkanization for a significant period of time before any seismic shift from English to Chinese which is unlikely to happen for a number of reasons regardless.

Over 150 years? It is a far fetched claim that the influence of english started in the 1870's. I would say it started 50-60 years ago at most.

Yes, after WWII. Einstein still published his key papers in German (1905), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#166

Post by mondaynightjams »

I think the root cause of the problem can be tracked down to high tuition fees in undergrad and low remuneration in postgrad research. A large number of undergrads come out of school with high student loans at which point it gives little financial incentive to go back to school. Especially if you land to a job fairly quickly.

I also think portraying someone pursuing science and tech as 'typical nerd' in media has something to do with it too. And not to say going through GREs for grad school admissions are kind of redundant as well.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#167

Post by nunobrito »

badminton1 wrote: post #124
goblekitepe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process of English becoming the global language has taken over 150 years. Massive cultural and economic forces have been at play to make English global. It's not a simple thing, and what will likely happen is language balkanization for a significant period of time before any seismic shift from English to Chinese which is unlikely to happen for a number of reasons regardless.

Before World War II, French was more popular than English.

Portuguese and Spanish are on the top 10 today besides English, French is 18th by number of native speakers.

Spanish is on second place with the most native speakers, then comes English in third position and Portuguese on sixth from the European-based idioms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of...

China tops that list, no wonder if they also produce a higher volume of literary works on their native language.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#169

Post by nunobrito »

badminton1 wrote: post #158
cm2187 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But none of what it takes for Chinese to posibly overtake one day is in place. Schools aren’t mass teaching chinese, chinese movies, music and authors aren’t captivating people’s mind, and there is already a modern latin (english), so learning chinese isn’t going to fix a problem people have, other than communicating with Chinese nationals who do not speak english.

More people are learning German in the EU now, and now there is also Brexit, which removes English as an official language there. Simultaneously, the role of the UK as a trade hub will be heavily diminished. I would not be surprised if in 50 years German surpassed English in the EU. China is heavily investing on Africa, so I would not be impressed if Africans start learning Mandarin more actively than they do now. Af…

Only if you count the recent wave of a million illegal immigrants, otherwise German remains difficult and not so popular to learn. If you disagree, please provide a source.

From my own experience (I speak/write in 5 different languages and live in Germany since 2011), it takes between 5 to 10 years to learn German minimally. Other Western European languages are simpler to learn and more popular: Spanish, English, Portuguese, French.

Much of the difficulty is not at knowing the German vocabulary and pronunciation. It is simply that the language is very strict in its written and spoken form. By comparison, other western languages had global exposure over the centuries and today are fitting like a shoe to the native speakers of other languages, so the learning curve is far less steep.

Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math

#170

Post by codeproject »

msaharia wrote: post #114
Eridrus wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point that most grad programs don't have US students is revealing - for those who have alternative entry into the US economy, most people decide that a PhD program is a poor choice. Most of the things people work on in their PhD programs are very niche, and most do not work in academia or on the same thing after they finish their PhD. And most people never really make a noticeable contribution to science…

That simply won't happen. 1. US isn't the only country which publishes in English. The entire Western hemisphere does. Not to mention India, already the most populous English-speaking country in the world, and has barely scratched the surface when it comes to English literacy. 2. Science needs interaction to thrive. Publishing textbooks in Mandarin is a very different ballgame than cutting edge research papers. I don…

"Science needs interaction to thrive", doesn't it?. I would expend it a bit. Always everything needs interaction. from a country down to a person. A person who can communicate well thrive in an environment will be successful in that environment.
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