U.S. science used to be a practical parasite on visionary Europe. Before World War II, the "basic" discoveries were made by Europeans; U.S. scientists busied themselves with developing the new knowledge, and U.S. technicians put it to work commercially.
No one knows all this better than the man who led U.S. science to war: Dr. Vannevar Bush, wartime head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. But Dr. Bush is hopeful that things are changing. In the first issue of Physics Today, he declares that U.S. science is now putting less emphasis on "practical" work and digging intofundamentals.
Writes Dr. Bush: "It...
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