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Showing posts with label world innovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world innovation. Show all posts

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Chinese scientists aim high with space gravitational wave project

Gravitational wave detection proposal in the works



Chinese scientists are proposing a space gravitational wave detection project that could either be a part of the European Space Agency’s eLISA project or a parallel project.

The announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves in the United States on Thursday by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory has encouraged scientists around the world, with China set to accelerate research. Gravitational waves are tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by violent astronomical events.

Scientists from the pre-research group at the Chinese Academy of Sciences disclosed that the group will finish drafting a plan for a space gravitational wave detection project by the end of this year and will submit it to China’s sci-tech authorities for review.

The Taiji project will include two alternative plans. One is to take a 20 percent share of the European Space Agency’s eLISA project; the other is to launch China’s own satellites by 2033 to authenticate the ESA project.

“Gravitational waves provide us with a new tool to understand the universe, so China has to actively participate in the research,” said Hu Wenrui, a prominent physicist in China and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“If we launch our own satellites, we will have a chance to be a world leader in gravitational wave research in the future. If we just participate in the eLISA project, it will also greatly boost China’s research capacity in space science and technology.

“In either case, it depends on the decision-makers’ resolution and the country’s investment,” he said.

The draft will provide different scenarios with budgets ranging from 160 million yuan ($24.3 million) to more than 10 billion yuan.

“Although I am not sure which plan the decision-makers will finally choose, I think the minimum budget of 160 million yuan should not be a problem for China,” Hu said.

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna’s gravitational wave observatory was the EAS’ cooperative mission with NASA to detect and observe gravitational waves. The project, proposed in 1993, involved three satellites that were arranged in a triangular formation and sent laser beams between each other.

Since NASA withdrew from the project in 2011 because of a budget shortfall, the LISA project evolved into a condensed version known as eLISA.

On Dec 2, the European Space Agency launched the space probe LISA Pathfinder to validate technologies that could be used in the construction of a full-scale eLISA observatory, which is scheduled for launch in 2035.

“Currently, all the operating gravitational wave detection experiments worldwide are ground observatories, which can only detect high-frequency gravitational wave signals,” said Wu Yueliang, deputy president of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“A space observatory, without any ground interference or limitation to the length of its detection arms, can spot gravitational waves at lower frequency.”

On February 11, scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the US confirmed they had detected gravitational waves caused by two black holes merging about 1.3 billion years ago. This was the first time this elusive phenomenon was directly detected since it was predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years ago.

LIGO, currently the most advanced ground facility for gravitational research, includes two gravitational wave detectors in isolated rural areas of the US states of Washington and Louisiana.

“Metaphorically speaking, if the research into gravitational waves is a symphony, the discovery of the LIGO experiment makes a good prelude by proving that the hypothetical wave does exist. But I believe the other movements will mostly be composed of new discoveries from space observatory devices, because the low and middle band — which can only be detected from space — is the most extensive source of gravitational wave,” said Hu, the CAS physicist.

Meanwhile, the Taiji project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has competitors in China. Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, proposed the Tianqin project in July. That project will receive a 300 million yuan startup fund from the local government to initiate a four-step plan to send three satellites in search of gravitational waves and other cosmic mysteries.

Li Miao, director of the Institute of Astronomy and Space Science, said it was still too early to tell the specific direction of the future of the university’s Tianqin project.

“The major gravitational wave research program in China is the cooperation with eLISA, which is led by professor Hu Wenrui,” Li was quoted by Guangdong’s Nanfang Daily as saying.

“The reason that eLISA made progress rather slowly was that the member states in Europe held different opinions as to whether gravitational waves exist. Now this has been proved to be true, which will greatly accelerate the pace of research in and out of China,” Li said.

China Daily/Asia News Network

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Sunday, January 24, 2016

Don’t blame China for global economic jitters; China contributed >25% global growth

‘There has never been a real recovery in North America and western Europe since 2008.’ Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

The US stock market has just had the worst start to a year in its history. At the same time, European and Japanese stock markets have lost around 10% and 15% of their values respectively; the Chinese stock market has resumed its headlong dash downward; and the oil price has fallen to the lowest level in 12 years, reflecting (and anticipating) worldwide economic slowdown.

According to the dominant economic narrative of recent times, 2016 was the year when the world economy would recover fully from the 2008 crash. The US would lead this recovery by generating growth and jobs via fiscal conservatism and pro-business policies. Reflecting the economy’s robust growth, the US stock market reached new heights in 2015, although disrupted by the mess in the Chinese stock market over the summer. By last October, US unemployment had fallen from the post-crisis peak of 10% to 5%, bringing it back close to the pre-crisis low. In a show of confidence, last month the US Federal Reserve finally raised its interest rate for the first time in nine years.

Not far behind the US, the story goes, have been Britain and Ireland. Hit harder than the US by the financial crisis, they have, however, recovered handsomely because they kept their nerve and stuck to the right, if unpopular, policies. Spending cuts, focused on wasteful welfare spending, accelerated job creation by making it more difficult for people to live off the taxpayer. They sensibly didn’t give in to the banker-bashers and chose not to over-regulate the financial sector.

Even the continental European economies have been finally picking up, it was said, having accepted the need for fiscal discipline, labour market reform and cutting business regulations. The world – at least the rich world – was finally set for a full recovery. So what has gone wrong?

Those who put forward the narrative are now trying to blame China in advance for the coming economic woes. George Osborne has been at the forefront, warning this month of a “dangerous cocktail of new threats” in which the devaluation of the Chinese currency and the fall in oil prices (both in large part due to China’s economic slowdown) figured most prominently. If our recovery was to be blown off course, he implied, it would be because China had mismanaged its economy.

China is, of course, an important factor in the global economy. Only 2.5% of the world economy in 1978, on the eve of its economic reform, it now accounts for around 13%. However, its importance should not be exaggerated. As of 2014, the US (22.5%) the eurozone (17%) and Japan (7%) together accounted for nearly half of the world economy. The rich world vastly overshadows China. Unless you are a developing economy whose export basket is mainly made up of primary commodities destined for China, you cannot blame your economic ills on its slowdown.

The truth is that there has never been a real recovery from the 2008 crisis in North America and western Europe. According to the IMF, at the end of 2015, inflation-adjusted income per head (in national currency) was lower than the pre-crisis peak in 11 out of 20 of those countries. In five (Austria, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland and the UK), it was only just higher – by between 0.05% (Austria) and 0.3% (Ireland). Only in four countries – Germany, Canada, the US and Sweden – was per-capita income materially higher than the pre-crisis peak.

Even in Germany, the best performing of those four countries, per capita income growth rate was just 0.8% a year between its last peak (2008) and 2015. The US growth rate, at 0.4% per year, was half that. Compare that with the 1% annual growth rate that Japan notched up during its so-called “lost two decades” between 1990 and 2010.

To make things worse, much of the recovery has been driven by asset market bubbles, blown up by the injection of cash into the financial market through quantitative easing. These asset bubbles have been most dramatic in the US and UK. They were already at an unprecedented level in 2013 and 2014, but scaled new heights in 2015. The US stock market reached the highest ever level in May 2015 and, after the dip over the summer, more or less came back to that level in December. Having come down by nearly a quarter from its April 2015 peak, Britain’s stock market is currently not quite so inflated, but the UK has another bubble to reckon with, in the housing market, where prices are 7% higher than the pre-crisis peak of 2007.

Thus seen, the main causes of the current economic turmoil lie firmly in the rich nations – especially in the finance-driven US and UK. Having refused to fundamentally restructure their economies after 2008, the only way they could generate any sort of recovery was with another set of asset bubbles. Their governments and financial sectors talked up anaemic recovery as an impressive comeback, propagating the myth that huge bubbles are a measure of economic health.

Whether or not the recent market turmoil leads to a protracted slide or a violent crash, it is proof that we have wasted the past seven years propping up a bankrupt economic model. Before things get any worse, we need to replace it with one in which the financial sector is made less complex and more patient, investment in the real economy is encouraged by fiscal and technological incentives, and measures are brought in to reduce inequality so that demand can be maintained without creating more debts.

None of these will be easy to implement, but we know what the alternative is – a permanent state of low growth, instability, and depressed living standards for the vast majority.

By Ha-Joon Chang, Guardian Economics News

China Should Take Advantage of Industry 4.0 to Shift Economy: Bill Gates

Philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates attends a panel "Preparing for the Next Pandemic" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 22, 2016. [Photo: Imagine China]


Microsoft founder Bill Gates has urged China to take advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution so as to face the challenge of transforming its economy.

He made the remarks on the sidelines of the ongoing World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.

"Well China's obviously got a lot of people, a lot of smart people. It's moved to not only have more people college educated, but lots of engineers, to raise the quality of those engineering skills. It's created a recognition that if people invent something that they can be rewarded for that, which is leading to all new sorts of companies. Not just the IT space, although that's the most visible, but also more and more in biology, robotics, those things, so China's going to carry its weight. "

Gates also expressed his optimism about China's economic future.

"There are a lot of great talents in China. You know, building up the educational system, you know, I think China has got a very bright future. I have a lot of confidence in China partly because they take long-term view; they look at what other countries are doing. You know China is going to contribute more and more to the world's innovation."

Figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics showed that the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2015 registered an annual growth rate of 6.9 percent, the lowest level since 1990.

Though slowing, China still contributed to more than 25 percent to global economic growth.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also termed as Industry 4.0, is marked by convergence of smart technology including artificial intelligence with the industrial sector.- (CRI Online)

China to Contribute More to World's Innovation: Bill Gates

With a strong ambition to promote science and research, China is going to contribute more and more to the world's innovation, Microsoft's founder Bill Gates has said.

In an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2016, Gates said China would probably become a huge participant in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is already under way and bringing a fast and disruptive change for most industries.

Talking about the new revolution, Gates believed the digital revolution, something he spent most of his life working on, was a huge factor.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution refers to the ongoing transformation of our society and economy, driven by advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology and other areas of science.

A key enabler of much of these new technologies is the Internet where Microsoft and Gates has been a leading contributor to the progress.

"An industrial revolution is coming to increase productivity very dramatically," Gates said, "It creates opportunities, and it creates challenges."

New technology changes would free some labor, so that people can do more in culture sector, according to Gates.

He said China had built some advantages in science and technology through its educational system, and the country had a strong will to promote its contribution in different sciences sectors.

"China obviously has a lot of people and a lot of smart people," Gates said, "Not only a lot of people college-educated, but also a lot of engineers with the quality of engineering skills. "

"With the recognition that people have done something that they can be rewarded for that, many experts have been leaded to have new companies, in IT sector, biology, robots and other those things."

"China is going to carry its weight," he said.

In recent years, the former internet elite has been dedicating to driving innovation in global health and development. As the Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates decided to join force with China's Tsinghua University to establish the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute(GHDDI) in Beijing during his Davos visit.

"China has made incredible progress in reducing poverty and shares the foundation's commitment to harnessing advances in science and technology to address the critical health challenges affecting the world's poorest people," Gates said.

"We are excited about GHDDI's potential to drive innovation in global health research and development, and look forward to partnering with Tsinghua University on our continued work to address the world's most pressing global health challenges."

In an article released during WEF, Gates pledged his foundation would invest more in innovation in the coming years. He told Xinhua that the investment that went to China's innovation was expected to increase gradually.

Asked whether he worried about China's economic slowdown, which may hinder innovation progress, Gates said he was quite optimistic about China's economic outlook.

"I have a lot of confidence in China, partly because they take a long-term view, and partly because they look what other countries are doing," he said.

Faced with a challenge of turning the economy into new directions, Gates said China had great talent to achieve its goal.

"Most countries would envy a 6.9 percent growth, I think China has a bright future,"he said, adding "China is going to be contributing more and more to the world's innovation." - Xinhua Web Editor: Zhang Peng

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