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For the first time in the post–World War II era, the federal government no longer funds a majority of the basic research carried out in the United States. Data from ongoing surveys by the National Science Foundation (NSF) show that federal agencies provided only 44% of the $86 billion spent on basic research in 2015. The federal share, which topped 70% throughout the 1960s and '70s, stood at 61% as recently as 2004 before falling below 50% in 2013.
The sharp drop in recent years is the result of two contrasting trends—a flattening of federal spending on basic research over the past decade and a significant rise in corporate funding of fundamental science since 2012.
[...] The U.S. pharmaceutical industry is the major driver behind the recent jump in corporate basic research [...] investment in basic research soared from $3 billion in 2008 to $8.1 billion in 2014, according to the most recent NSF data by business sector. Spending on basic research by all U.S. businesses nearly doubled over that same period, from $13.9 billion to $24.5 billion.
Basic research comprises only about one-sixth of the country's spending on all types of R&D, which totaled $499 billion in 2015. Applied makes up another one-sixth, whereas the majority, some $316 billion, is development. Almost all of that is funded by industry and done inhouse, as companies try to convert basic research into new drugs, products, and technologies that they hope will generate profits.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 10 2017, @08:14PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 10 2017, @09:31PM
but I suspect from your quoted segment that khallow wanted to draw the connection between c being c and Special Relativity, rather than General Relativity.
The thing is, general relativity explains why special relativity works. Special relativity is an approximation where space is nearly flat (with objected in it moving at speeds close enough to the speed of light to be significant).
It's simply a case of knowing that certain things (stones, metals, circuits) have certain properties, and have them reliably.
There's a lot of materials. How can we determine what properties the materials will have without going through a very costly amount of testing? That's where model building comes into play.