XIV
Preface
unrealistic in the utmost, a fact of which scientists everywhere were the first
beneficiaries although never nearly as much as American ones 17 • This not only
made it possible for many more young Americans to choose scientific careers
than was the case before WW II, it also attracted to America many scientists
(and still more engineers) who had been educated elsewhere, a process that
is continuing to this day - the famous brain drain that was first noticed
in the 1950s, not to mention some Russian immigrants after 1917 and the
European Jews in the 1930s.
* * *
The French version of this book included many citations and references in
English, particularly in the Post face to Volume II, this in order to encourage
the reader to use a language that is absolutely indispensable if one wants
to inform oneself on anything at all: for clear demographic reasons France
accounts for only a small proportion of the literature, for instance from 3%
(technology) to 7% (mathematics) in the sciences on the world scale, and
although French authors publish excellent books in many domains, scientific
or not, they cannot be leaders everywhere. There is for instance nothing of
any value on the history of nuclear weapons, not even of French ones, and
none of the best American books have been translated. Almost all I know in
the Science and Defence domain has been learned from American authors,
although a few French historians of Science and Technology are beginning to
deal with it.
There is no need to suggest to readers of the English translation of the
present book to learn English. One should however warn the beginner that,
even though well over 60% of the mathematical literature is now in English,
an ability to read French is, at the research level, still needed. Since 1945, the
Fields Medal has been awarded to 44 people worldwide; seven of them were
French, and two more, although they are not, did all their previous work in
France; the first Abel Prize (a recently created substitute to the nonexistent
Nobel Prize for Mathematics) has been awarded in 2003 to Jean-Pierre Serre,
who won a Fields Medal in 1954, and others won for instance the Wolf Prize.
There are in France many more excellent mathematicians than these stars;
although some publish in English, still many write in French. And there are
of course German and Russian authors, among others, who still publish in
the one language they learned as infants, as anglo phone authors always did.
17 In 1965, Isidor Rabi, a winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, pointed out that the
budget of the Columbia University physics lab had grown from 15,000 dollars before the war to three millions and attributes this to the war which "did wonderful
things in some respects". Hans Bethe, another Nobel Laureate, remembered in
1962 that before WW II he found it difficult to get some $3,000 for a cyclotron
at Cornell, but that, "Today, $3,000 is pin money. We use it in this laboratory
in a day" . To be objective, one should also note the fantastic increase of civilian
research funds allocated to Life Sciences, mainly Biology and Medicine; but even
in this case, it was WW II, especially the development of penicillin, which at the
start demonstrated what could be done in these fields with enough money and
a concerted effort.
Preface
unrealistic in the utmost, a fact of which scientists everywhere were the first
beneficiaries although never nearly as much as American ones 17 • This not only
made it possible for many more young Americans to choose scientific careers
than was the case before WW II, it also attracted to America many scientists
(and still more engineers) who had been educated elsewhere, a process that
is continuing to this day - the famous brain drain that was first noticed
in the 1950s, not to mention some Russian immigrants after 1917 and the
European Jews in the 1930s.
* * *
The French version of this book included many citations and references in
English, particularly in the Post face to Volume II, this in order to encourage
the reader to use a language that is absolutely indispensable if one wants
to inform oneself on anything at all: for clear demographic reasons France
accounts for only a small proportion of the literature, for instance from 3%
(technology) to 7% (mathematics) in the sciences on the world scale, and
although French authors publish excellent books in many domains, scientific
or not, they cannot be leaders everywhere. There is for instance nothing of
any value on the history of nuclear weapons, not even of French ones, and
none of the best American books have been translated. Almost all I know in
the Science and Defence domain has been learned from American authors,
although a few French historians of Science and Technology are beginning to
deal with it.
There is no need to suggest to readers of the English translation of the
present book to learn English. One should however warn the beginner that,
even though well over 60% of the mathematical literature is now in English,
an ability to read French is, at the research level, still needed. Since 1945, the
Fields Medal has been awarded to 44 people worldwide; seven of them were
French, and two more, although they are not, did all their previous work in
France; the first Abel Prize (a recently created substitute to the nonexistent
Nobel Prize for Mathematics) has been awarded in 2003 to Jean-Pierre Serre,
who won a Fields Medal in 1954, and others won for instance the Wolf Prize.
There are in France many more excellent mathematicians than these stars;
although some publish in English, still many write in French. And there are
of course German and Russian authors, among others, who still publish in
the one language they learned as infants, as anglo phone authors always did.
17 In 1965, Isidor Rabi, a winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, pointed out that the
budget of the Columbia University physics lab had grown from 15,000 dollars before the war to three millions and attributes this to the war which "did wonderful
things in some respects". Hans Bethe, another Nobel Laureate, remembered in
1962 that before WW II he found it difficult to get some $3,000 for a cyclotron
at Cornell, but that, "Today, $3,000 is pin money. We use it in this laboratory
in a day" . To be objective, one should also note the fantastic increase of civilian
research funds allocated to Life Sciences, mainly Biology and Medicine; but even
in this case, it was WW II, especially the development of penicillin, which at the
start demonstrated what could be done in these fields with enough money and
a concerted effort.