Editing Big science (section)

== Development ==
{{further|Military funding of science|History of science}}
While science and technology have always been important to and driven by [[war]]fare, the increase in military funding of science following the second World War was on a scale wholly unprecedented.  [[James Bryant Conant|James Conant]], in a 1941 letter to ''Chemical Engineering News'', said that World War II "is a physicist's war rather than a chemist's,"<ref>{{Cite journal |journal=Nature |volume=523 |issue=7562 |pages=523&ndash;525 |title=History: From blackboards to bombs |first=David |last=Kaiser |authorlink=David Kaiser (physicist) |date=28 July 2015 |doi=10.1038/523523a |pmid=26223611|bibcode=2015Natur.523..523K |doi-access=free }}</ref> a phrase that was cemented in the vernacular in post-war discussion of the role that those scientists played in the development of new weapons and tools, notably the [[proximity fuse]], [[radar]], and the [[atomic bomb]].  The bulk of these last two activities took place in a new form of research facility: the government-sponsored laboratory, employing thousands of technicians and scientists, managed by [[university|universities]] (in this case, the [[University of California]] and the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]).

The need of a strong scientific research establishment was obvious in the shadow of the first atomic weapons to any country seeking to play a prominent role in world affairs. After the success of the [[Manhattan Project]], governments became the chief patron of science, and the character of the scientific establishment underwent several key changes. This was especially marked in the [[United States]] and the [[Soviet Union]] during the [[Cold War]], but also to a lesser extent in many other countries.