Edith Cresson, a former European Commissioner for Research, once said that, “funding directly nanotechnologies would have been more rewarding than creating CERN.” She was wrong: the complexity of modern science does not allow anyone, least of all bureaucrats, to predict where innovation will emerge.
伊迪斯·克里森（Edith Cresson），前欧盟研究专员曾表示：“直接资助纳米技术的研究本可以比创建CERN更有成效。”她错了：现代科学的复杂性不允许任何人，更不允许官僚们对科学创新将会出现的领域进行预测。对基础研究的公共基金支持和行业投资都是实现长期的技术发展所必需的。