China Plans to Surpass the U.S. in Nanotech Development

SoyChemist writes "Sociologists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting have reported that China is making major investments in nanotechnology. Their aim is to 'leapfrog' past the United States in technological development by focusing on long-ranging scientific goals. So far, the Chinese government has poured about $400 million into the young field of research. Considering the low cost of equipment and labor over there, that is a very large sum of money, and China's investment is expected to 'rise considerably.'"

Comments

meh

[Sylos]

Last time China tried a great leap forward..didn't work out so well.

Re:Unfortunately,

[DigiShaman]

Since when does developing nano technology require brute force cheap labor and low tech equipment?

Nano Tech will require bright minds and very highend industrial technology. Currently, the US leads China in both fields.

Standard funding scare & beg

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like somebody wants more funding and is raising the China bogeyman to do it.

totally ignorant

[Quadraginta]

As someone who has actually worked with academics and entrepreneurs in this field, I call bullshit on this. No professional scientist or engineer I've met has spent a moment's thought on what any putative "don't play God" faction thinks, or even thinks he needs to. There's zero evidence that any such faction, should it even exist outside of your imagination, has ever had any significant effect on technological advancement in this country.

Furthermore, my experience suggests that the Chinese have a much more substantial and real cultural barrier to any kind of technological progress (which is, I think, one reason why a society civilized a thousand years before the West, and having had a far larger population for far longer, has nevertheless consistently lagged behind the West in terms of invention and innovation, at least on a per capita basis).

The problem is that the Confucian tradition strongly reinforcea an acceptance of existing heirarchy, and of paying the utmost respect to your elders and those better educated and more experienced than yourself. This is antithetical to innovation and invention. The only way you can invent something new is by doing something that older and wiser heads think is foolish. (If they didn't think it was dumb, they'd have done it themselves already.)

Consequently true innovation happens only in a culture that does not value established wisdom too much, which is willing to take some chances on a young, hot-headed, crazy contrarian way of thinking. China has a long and strong cultural tradition of valuing established wisdom, and I think that is a much more significant cultural barrier to innovation than any silly Chicken-Little faddish fear that evangelicals are going to rise up and smite researchers working on nanoscopic gears and motors because the latter weren't described in the Bible.

USA has no national goals

[EmbeddedJanitor]

USA made great strides during the 1960s because the whole space thing was seen as a national goal with everyone onboard. Getting there was a national priority, above just any individual company's priority. That has ceased to be. Sure there were some Lockheed vs Boeing etc spats, but nothing like the inter-corporate fights of today. Major tech companies now just spend more time body-slamming each other.

USA lacks national technological goals now and no matter how bright the minds, if they don't have a supporting environment then they will not reach their potential.

China is working as a nation whiich means they will get further with what they have.

Money and equipment don't make for winning. Here's the story of the 1996 Americas Cup: The US team had the might of Boeing (Crays etc) and fleets of white coats to do their math modelling etc. The kiwis had a corner in their warehouse with a couple of SGI workstations. The kiwis achieved more with their math modelling because the math guy was onsite and slept on the floor next to his computers. They used what equipment they had with maximum effectiveness.

Re:USA has no national goals

[damienl451]

This article confuses being smart with being culture, which are two widely different things. Knowing lots of trivia about Shakespeare and Milton means you're cultivated (not smart). Knowing a lot about, say, nanotechs (as in: you're making valuable contributions to the field) means you're intelligent/competent in your field of expertise, but doesn't mean that you're cultivated. We can certainly lament that many Americans don't know much about history or geography, but it doesn't follow that they're less intelligent.

I also dislike how she labels everyone who disagrees with her an `anti-rationalist'. There is nothing irrational or anti-rational about claiming that the average American doesn't need to know foreign languages. Why would not knowing a foreign language be `a manifestation of ignorance'? Sure, if you're a businessman, a diplomat or a show-off, being multilingual is beneficial. If you're a mechanic, a bank teller or a steel-mill worker, I don't see the point.

Re:USA has no national goals

[Dr. Hellno]

The only problem I have with this article is the argument that media, not content are to blame. Video games are mentioned as a new development during the course of American intellectual decline, with the obvious implication that they are partially responsible. The author also mentions that she can't prove "hammering away at a Microsoft Xbox" is less beneficial to the young mind than reading, which clearly means that she believes this to be the case.

The problem is, she's right... but the xbox is not to blame.

Anyone who played monkey island and now plays halo knows what I mean. Likewise, anyone who has seen truly great films and now sees "live free or die hard", or worse, "transformers", knows what I mean. The content has become stupider, not the media. This is because people seem to want stupid fare, and that's not a phenomenon I know how to explain.

If I can offer any kind of proof of the innocence of videogames as a medium, it's this: when I was about six, my parents installed some simple games for me on the family computer. The games were educational; with mickey mouse as my avatar, I remember learning the word xylophone. In another game, the concept of opposites was illustrated to me by example. Later, I learned about pioneers in Oregon trail; I learned my sense of humor largely from exposure to lucasfilm games.

This is quickly becoming tl;dr. So, to summarize: this article is bullshit because it blames videogames (among other things) for the crumbling of the American mind; it fails to see that games without intelligent content, and movies of the same nature, are symptoms of modern-day America, not causes.

Re:Unfortunately,

[mrbluze]

Currently, the US leads China in both fields. But China needn't fear, as the US is doing everything it can from its side to reverse the situation.