The principles underlying the U.S. approach to government-funded research and development remain solid—but the world has changed Feb 7, 2014 |By Timothy M. Persons
SA Forum is an invited essay from experts on topical issues in science and technology.
Vannevar Bush, the director of the World War II–era Office of Scientific Research and Development, was an innovator in fields including electrical engineering, computation and medicine. He invented the differential analyzer (an early analog computer), a silicone rubber valve for the heart and even an early version of a machine to search across large amounts of books and periodicals (what we now call a search engine). But his greatest contribution to American science was shaping the U.S. research and development system as we know it today.
Image: Lithium ion batteries are an example of an important technology sponsored and developed in the U.S. but commercialized overseas. Credit: Immortal_Undead/Flickr
To read the original article: Does the American Innovation System Need a Reboot? - Scientific American
