100 years ago Europe was home to the intellectual elite. If you wanted to study physics at the highest level, you naturally went to Getynga, Berlin or Munich. Everyone interested in linguistics or philosophy dreamed of studying in Oxford, Hamburg, Marburg or Krakow. Doctors from around the world came to the Berlin Hospital Charite. Then the Nazis came, drove or murdered Jews, destroyed Central and Eastern Europe, erased the intellectual elite in Poland-and everything changed.
The United States welcomed displaced scientists from Europe with open arms. After the war, the American army sent those scientists over the ocean who built a wonderful weapon for the Nazis. As a result Universities such as Harvard, Princeton and Stanford have become the best educational institutions in the world. According to the German project, the American rocket flew to the moon. America has become a scientific and technological supermarket – no other country collects more Nobel Prizes.
Perhaps we are witnessing the end of this era. Under the rule of Donald Trump Foreign scientists are harassed and intimidated. Here is one of many examples: a scientist who emigrated from South Korea at the age of five and has an important green card, was held at the airport in San Francisco for a week.
Foreign students who apply for a visa barely cross the country's borders. In addition The government cuts funds for foundations promoting science and forces them to dismiss employees. Even the NASA Space Agency has been brutally cut off.
Some observers are reminiscent of hysterical hunting for communists from the 1950s, when scientists were forced to take an oath of loyalty, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology released didactic employees because they were suspected of leftist activities. In fact, however, today's situation is much worse. In the 1950s, no one would think about limiting public research financing. For God's sake, it was not allowed to be a leftist, it was not yet thought that being involved in learning was something bad.
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Does Trump's government want Nobel Prizes to be received only by American geniuses and not foreign luminaries? Then he would have to invest more money in education, but it's the opposite. Trump set himself to eliminate the department responsible for it. This cannot be achieved with one stroke of the pen, because Congress is responsible for this, so Trump has just charged a significant part of the funds for now.
In the long run it will have the consequences Especially in the poorest regions of the states ruled by Republicans. Because everything that even unclearly associates with integration and anti -racism has been removed, the potential Nobel Prize winner in the field of physics, which was unlucky to be born as a poor black girl in Louisiana, may not even have a chance to learn to write and mathematics as a child.
“The private sector is good only at the last stage of innovation”
We don't have to talk about potential geniuses. Instead, let's talk about the terrain Tao, born in 1975, perhaps the smartest person in the world. He was two years old when he showed other children how to count with blocks, nine years when he undertook mathematical courses at university level, 13 years when he won the mathematical Olympics. At the age of 19, he began writing a doctoral dissertation in Princeton. In 2006 he won the Fields medal, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize. He was compared to Darwin, Einstein and Michelangelo. His admirers call him “Mozart mathematics”. He is an immigrant and child of immigrants: his parents come from China, he himself grew up in Australia, and in his youth he emigrated to America. It is said that his intelligence quotient is incredible 230.
Today, this “Mozart mathematics” lectures at the University of California in Los Angeles. The entire financing of the Tao's activity, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, has been canceled there under the pretext of fighting anti -Semitism. Particularly violent demonstrations for Hamas took place at UCLA. The canceled funds included: scholarships enabling students to work with him in his laboratory and financing of the “Institute of Associations and Applied Mathematics”, in which Tao was to take the position of director.
Funds are enough to continue work for several months, after which, as Tao wrote in socio -enlarged media, everything will have to be closed. Could private or large companies fill this gap? NOsays a mathematician and uses an example to explain why: his research has enabled patients who need magnetic resonance imaging, spending only 30 seconds in these large, noisy machines instead of six minutes to which they were used to.
Mathematician Tao at the Breakthrough Prize gala. Mountain View, December 3, 2017Kimberly White / Getty Images North America / AFP
But this was possible only after basic mathematical studies. Nobody could know in advance if they would have any practical application. And these basic research was financed by the state. – The private sector is only good at the last stage of innovation – Tao told The Bulwark's internet magazine – Because they want to know with high probability that it will work.
China and Europe have a snoring for scientists from the USA
According to the survey conducted by the magazine “Nature” Three quarters of all American scientists are currently considering leaving the United States. This fact was not unnoticed by the competitors and enemies of America. The Chinese conduct aggressive recruitment, offering huge sums of money and luxurious working conditions for the best scientists willing to emigrate.
According to The Atlantic magazine, the European Union has allocated $ 500 million. [ok. 1,8 mld zł] to participate in this race. Max Planck's company has long been looking for talents on the other side of the ocean. The rule of Norway, Denmark and France will also be happy to accept American emigrants.
“The Atlantic” quotes a researcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who prefers to remain anonymous. She watched with horror how Trump's administration used a bulldozer against American universities. He wonders if she really would like to spend the next few years running away from the rolling debris. The polytechnic in Zurich offered her the opportunity to move to Switzerland along with her laboratory. There she would have a beautiful view of the Alps from the window of her workplace.
Will Trump draw conclusions from history?
In human history, the leading civilizations were mutilated by themselves. The history of Islam offers us a particularly terrifying precedent. It is well known that Islamic civilization was very advanced in the Middle Ages. “House of Wisdom”, a university from the observatory, hospital and library, stood in Baghdad from 825. The works of Greek philosophers were translated there into Arabic with the help of Jews, Christians and Sabean. The mathematician al-chwarizmi, who taught in Baghdad, developed the foundation of Algebra. One -third of the stars in the sky has Arabic names because they were mapped by Muslim astronomers.
The wise men at the House of Wisdom. Illustration from the manuscript of Makama Al-Hariri, stored at the Bibliotheque Nationale in ParisWikipedia
Then, in the 11th century, something broke. The ceiling mystic al-Ghazali wrote that all philosophers were wrong. There were no laws of nature, because the world was completely subordinated to Allah's will every second. He even considered this pious man to be diabolical. The Muslim mind that was so open began to close. Until the scientific method discovered in Europe in the 16th century, it was long closed; The advantage of the West over the East could not be made up for.
Will Harvard, Princeton and Stanford be mentioned someday with the same longing that we are now thinking about the house of wisdom in a medieval Baghdad?
I’m Ashley Davis as an editor, I’m committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and accuracy in every piece we publish. My work is driven by curiosity, a passion for truth, and a belief that journalism plays a crucial role in shaping public discourse. I strive to tell stories that not only inform but also inspire action and conversation.
