OT: 10 smartest countries in the world when it comes to science

Then why is nearly all of the cutting-edge gear in many markets such as medical ultrasound coming from our "lowly" country and not from, say, Estonia? Why is there no Space-X in Greece?

Fancy degrees in science don't mean a lot if people don't do much with them. Or can't do much with them.

Looks like foreign corporations dominate of the market.

Cuz they're not dumb.

Fancy degrees? Sounds kind of hillbilly-ish.

The criteria there are pretty fuzzy. A country can hand out as many PhDs as they like.

The US does pretty well when it comes to inventing things and getting Nobel prizes.

What cool tech or science comes out of Portugal? Mexico?

Actually, Estonia is a cool place with a lot of nice, smart people. But it's very small. And they spend a relative lot on defense, what with Russia acting like Russia.

They created Skype.

A LOT came out of the Space Shuttle Program and the ISS.

in-science-2015-12

I'm always deeply suspicious about lists like this and the bodies that compile them. This one makes very little sense indeed.

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Ouch, the start of that makes me wince.

I'm a lws (liberal weenie snowflake), but I worry about science in the US. How well in touch is it with industry?

Are there any industrial labs left in the US? GE, IBM, Bell.. don't they all look like shadows of their former selves? I will say that all the physics PhD's I know are still landing jobs in silicon fab. places, or software.

George H.

"smartest" rarely equates with most productive. Look around you at all the "smart", but losers, we have posting here... they can't even "get laid" >:-}

I don't consider myself to be very smart... I'm good at math... using it... not really worth a plug proving theory... but _results_ are what pay the big bucks.

Likewise circuit design... I excel at "what if's"... I can trounce almost any PhD walking when it comes to producing circuits with outstanding functionality.

But PhD's often manage to snatch all the glory... here's a clip from an ED_Mag E-mail:

"Our partner, EE Times, is giving away a copy of The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz! Widely viewed as the best single authoritative book on electronic circuit design,The Art of Electronics is an indispensable reference for anyone (student or researcher, professional or amateur), who works with electronic circuits."

Nary a mention of our well-known lurker, Win Hill. ...Jim Thompson

It must have come out of Portugal and Mexico, right, AlwaysWrong?!

Nope. Siemens bought Acuson in the Bay Area and Philips bought both of my previous employers. It's all American engineering. The know-how is right here in the US. Stuff like this:

They will some day be left in the dust, and that is dumb.

Well, I got one of those fancy degrees.

About as valid as the poll sources DemocRats used to claim "85% of Americans..." ...Jim Thompson

Yes, there are. I work with some but not at liberty to tell.

Today's corporate labs are being run much more quietly and with less fanfare than the former Bell Labs yet they do cutting-edge stuff.

IME a disproportionately large amount of innovation originates at small and very small companies. It's pretty much always been like that in the US. Sometimes humble places like this and we all know what that turned into:

In the US, if you hold good know-how you have a job. At least since last year. The degree doesn't matter all that much, and shouldn't. What is hard is when you want to retire because they won't let you.

-in-science-2015-12

It takes a Silicon Valley or a Route 66 to generate cutting edge developmen t - you need enough skilled sub-contractors around to get stuff to market f ast enough to grab the early adopters. There's definitely a minimum critica l mass for talent. "Freakonomics" talked about the appeal of big cities in those terms.

Obviously.

I wonder why Jim thinks he knows that? It's not as if anybody who posts her e actually boasts about their sexual successes.

Because you've done it all before - or most of it. Always helps.

More likely incompetence than prejudice.

If you get a Ph.D. you should have produced publishable work, and published it, so Ph.D.s should be primed to get their work published and noticed. It took me a while to work out how to write a publishable paper - my Ph.D. tr aining had failed me there - and by that time I'd lost interest in publishi ng the Ph.D. work.

Not exactly.

And even better at hiring Nobel Prize winners to work at American Universities, after they've won the Nobel prize.

The US used to import a lot of technical talent.

who now works in the US.

Moniz was the first Portugese to win a Nobel Prize. What he won it for is no longer highly regarded ...

I'm sure that you could do something similar for Mexico.

"Most people with fancy STEM degrees are stupid"

Me: "Hey! I definitely don't have one of those, I went to art school!"

"You're also stupid"

lol I think I see how this game is played

Sounds like you are getting burned out. When was the last time you took a vacation?

Can't you spill off some of the work to other competent engineers? Subconract it out, then you can go fishing.

Google, Micro$oft, Tesla, ...

Make us a list.