4 ms·

It can probably become a science heavyweight simply by being here at the moment when science funding in the USA is about to collapse.

nickff 2y ago
The USA did quite well in applied research before the federal government became the dominant source of funds. That said, it would probably take some time (and some pain) to readjust, and theoretical/arts research would likely be dramatically reduced.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  > The USA did quite well in applied research before the federal government became the dominant source of funds. For my own curiosity, when did that transition occur?
  - vuln 2y ago
    1950 according to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation
  - tomrod 2y ago
    DARPA, ARPA-H, etc.
- epistasis 2y ago
  Can you share any pointers on this topic about applied research success, I'm guessing in the pre-WW2 era? I have not heard anything about that and have not been able to locate supporting resources by a web search just now.
  - ghc 2y ago
    Edison, Bell, IBM, Morse, US Steel, Wright, Sikorsky, Westinghouse, Marconi, Dictaphone, Goodyear...there's a lot, any many of the companies are still household names even if they don't exist anymore. How did these R&D operations get their start? The same as universities at the time: they were funded by private backers, often family, or the parent corporation of the R&D Lab (IBM Research, Bell Labs, General Electric, etc.). It's Vannevar Bush who spearheaded the creation of the federal research funding system as we know it today, for the sake of the war effort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush. As a side effect, basic research is now mostly government funded, and the peer review system was created to ensure taxpayers were "getting their money's worth". A more interesting question is: why did it work then, and could it work today? My (admittedly pessimistic) view is that life-changing innovations were a lot easier (read: cheaper) to create back then. Continual breakthroughs in materials science, transportation and communications technologies left a lot of "white space" to innovate in.
- vuln 2y ago
  Perhaps US Universities should tap into billion dollar endowments or slash the administrative headcount instead of raising tuition yet again. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/02/nih-trump-university-crisis/681634/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/02/nih-trump...
  - fisherjeff 2y ago
    But the point of an endowment is to have a relatively stable funding stream in perpetuity - if you start dipping into the principal, the funding stream starts shrinking and is no longer perpetual. Harvard’s endowment, for example, already funds a little less than 40% of its budget, and should be able to continue doing so indefinitely. If you bump that to even, say, 50% there’s a good chance it won’t have any endowment (or funding stream!) at all in the year 2100.
- criddell 2y ago
  Arguably, the USA did even better with the feds funding research. I don't know of any program that had a higher ROI than DARPA's VLSI Project.
  - Jalad 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLSI_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLSI_Project > The VLSI Project is one of the most influential research projects in modern computer history. Its offspring include Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix, the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor concept, many computer-aided design (CAD) tools still in use today, 32-bit graphics workstations, fabless manufacturing and design houses, and its own semiconductor fabrication plant (fab), MOSIS, starting in 1981.[2] A similar DARPA project partnering with industry, VHSIC had little or no impact. Wow that's insane, I never knew that
dang 2y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. (This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.) It's clear why this happens and of course it's not ill intended. The mind naturally follows the most-traveled association path from a new stimulus back to something familiar. Unfortunately, that is the anticurious direction. Swapping out a specific new topic for the nearest familiar one means replacing a potentially new and interesting discussion with a repetitive old one. These large generic themes are like black holes: if you fly too close to one, you get sucked in there instead of going wherever else you might have explored, and then no new information emerges. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20black%20hole&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- JoelMcCracken 2y ago
  I do get your point, and generally think it makes sense, but in this case it seems extremely relevant: There is a global competition for intellectual capital, and at the moment, the US' position here seems at the very least uncertain, given all that is happening.
  - caminante 2y ago
    > I do get your point, [...] but in this case it seems extremely relevant Not sure you do. At a minimum, they could rephrase for better discussion v. a snarky, low effort claim that the sky is falling.
    - 9283409232 2y ago
      The sky is indeed falling. You not wanting to look up doesn't change that.
      - caminante 2y ago
        You're still not taking a hint [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43018477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43018477

nickff 2y ago

The USA did quite well in applied research before the federal government became the dominant source of funds. That said, it would probably take some time (and some pain) to readjust, and theoretical/arts research would likely be dramatically reduced.

SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
> The USA did quite well in applied research before the federal government became the dominant source of funds. For my own curiosity, when did that transition occur?
- vuln 2y ago
  1950 according to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation
- tomrod 2y ago
  DARPA, ARPA-H, etc.
epistasis 2y ago
Can you share any pointers on this topic about applied research success, I'm guessing in the pre-WW2 era? I have not heard anything about that and have not been able to locate supporting resources by a web search just now.
- ghc 2y ago
  Edison, Bell, IBM, Morse, US Steel, Wright, Sikorsky, Westinghouse, Marconi, Dictaphone, Goodyear...there's a lot, any many of the companies are still household names even if they don't exist anymore. How did these R&D operations get their start? The same as universities at the time: they were funded by private backers, often family, or the parent corporation of the R&D Lab (IBM Research, Bell Labs, General Electric, etc.). It's Vannevar Bush who spearheaded the creation of the federal research funding system as we know it today, for the sake of the war effort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush. As a side effect, basic research is now mostly government funded, and the peer review system was created to ensure taxpayers were "getting their money's worth". A more interesting question is: why did it work then, and could it work today? My (admittedly pessimistic) view is that life-changing innovations were a lot easier (read: cheaper) to create back then. Continual breakthroughs in materials science, transportation and communications technologies left a lot of "white space" to innovate in.
vuln 2y ago
Perhaps US Universities should tap into billion dollar endowments or slash the administrative headcount instead of raising tuition yet again. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/02/nih-trump-university-crisis/681634/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/02/nih-trump...
- fisherjeff 2y ago
  But the point of an endowment is to have a relatively stable funding stream in perpetuity - if you start dipping into the principal, the funding stream starts shrinking and is no longer perpetual. Harvard’s endowment, for example, already funds a little less than 40% of its budget, and should be able to continue doing so indefinitely. If you bump that to even, say, 50% there’s a good chance it won’t have any endowment (or funding stream!) at all in the year 2100.
criddell 2y ago
Arguably, the USA did even better with the feds funding research. I don't know of any program that had a higher ROI than DARPA's VLSI Project.
- Jalad 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLSI_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLSI_Project > The VLSI Project is one of the most influential research projects in modern computer history. Its offspring include Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix, the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor concept, many computer-aided design (CAD) tools still in use today, 32-bit graphics workstations, fabless manufacturing and design houses, and its own semiconductor fabrication plant (fab), MOSIS, starting in 1981.[2] A similar DARPA project partnering with industry, VHSIC had little or no impact. Wow that's insane, I never knew that

dang 2y ago

Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. (This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.) It's clear why this happens and of course it's not ill intended. The mind naturally follows the most-traveled association path from a new stimulus back to something familiar. Unfortunately, that is the anticurious direction. Swapping out a specific new topic for the nearest familiar one means replacing a potentially new and interesting discussion with a repetitive old one. These large generic themes are like black holes: if you fly too close to one, you get sucked in there instead of going wherever else you might have explored, and then no new information emerges. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20black%20hole&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

JoelMcCracken 2y ago
I do get your point, and generally think it makes sense, but in this case it seems extremely relevant: There is a global competition for intellectual capital, and at the moment, the US' position here seems at the very least uncertain, given all that is happening.
- caminante 2y ago
  > I do get your point, [...] but in this case it seems extremely relevant Not sure you do. At a minimum, they could rephrase for better discussion v. a snarky, low effort claim that the sky is falling.
  - 9283409232 2y ago
    The sky is indeed falling. You not wanting to look up doesn't change that.
    - caminante 2y ago
      You're still not taking a hint [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43018477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43018477