Speaking at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi, American Nobel Prize winner, George Smoot declared, “The future of science lies in India, China and other Asian countries and these are set to dominate new scientific inventions and discoveries in the coming times.”
“We are seeing a shift in science from all the advanced societies like US, Japan, etc. Basic research, making new inventions and discoveries, would be important to countries like India, China and Korea who will dominate the making of new discoveries. The new economy is going to rest on their shoulders as it had rested on the shoulders of the Western societies,” the astrophysicist and cosmologist Smoot said.
At the seminar, the 2006 Nobel winner in Physics queried, ‘How can scientific creativity deliver the greatest benefit to humankind?’ Screening a short clip of actor Tom Cruise engaging in a gestural interface in the film whose plot involves a futuristic technology which allows police to arrest people before they commit crimes, Smoot asked, “Why don’t we do the things that he did in the film now that we have the suitable technologies?”
In his answer, he said, “It is because of a lot of reasons like money and vision.”
The Nobel laureate also talked about how people obtain new ideas and gave a description of the wonder material, high-quality graphene — an invention which bagged a Nobel in the year 2002. He said that the special water filtration potential of graphene was being harnessed by countries like Israel to become game changers. He also cited the example of the invention of X-rays to explain his point that creativity does not need a genius but “one who can make the connection between things.”
“Scientific creativity can deliver the greatest benefit to humankind by well supporting basic science that allows transformative discoveries followed by strong development and implementation,” Smoot concluded.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
