George Osborne speech at the Royal Society

George Osborne speech at the Royal Society; Osborne speech SOT - The idea that our science community do not bridge theory and practice, science and technology is just plain wrong. We could not have world-class science without world-class technology creating new instruments. The Cavendish Lab at Cambridge proudly preserves the equipment which made their early experiments possible. They say they would not have won those Nobel Prizes nearly a century ago but for the skill of their glass-blowers who created the best cloud chambers. The Large Hadron Collider is a miracle of modern engineering. I have heard it said, there was a time when more welders were working there than on any other construction project in Europe. Modern astronomy depends on extraordinarily sophisticated satellite systems. In his excellent Reith Lectures, Martin Rees, the previous President of the Royal Society, explored the creative interaction of science and technology. Scientific curiosity creates a need for new equipment which makes new science possible. That creates new knowledge which in turn makes more new technology possible. Market opportunities are opened up too. I think of the British small business which has a developed a device for drilling into surface of Mars which responds to the density of the material it encounters. It is now being used for improving the performance of the machines stamping out aluminium cans. The advanced materials developed at Culham for enclosing the extremely hot plasma in nuclear fusion can also improve performance of conventional nuclear power stations. The economic crisis has accelerated a change that was already happening in our world. Prosperity and the power it brings are shifting to new corners of the globe, to countries like China, India and Brazil. So as the Prime Minister has said, countries like ours are in a global race. That we face a choice: Sink or swim, Do or decline. The starting point is dealing with our debts and confronting problems we fac...