HAPPY 75th, NSF!
We’re celebrating this milestone by highlighting some of NSF’s most transformative accomplishments—innovations that have shaped our world and continue to drive progress in health, technology, the environment, and beyond.
Read on 🧵(1/11):
We’re celebrating this milestone by highlighting some of NSF’s most transformative accomplishments—innovations that have shaped our world and continue to drive progress in health, technology, the environment, and beyond.
Read on 🧵(1/11):
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Had to share the ASL sign for Trump ... can't fault it! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGfYLJp1NGA
In the 1950s, the NSF began laying foundations for American science.
After WWII devastated Europe’s research infrastructure, the U.S. stepped up—with the newly founded NSF funding massive projects like the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia.
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/73/5/40/824153/NSF-and-postwar-US-scienceIn-the-early-days-of-NSF
In the 1960s, NSF helped give ASL the recognition it deserved.
At the time, ASL wasn’t seen as a “real” language. But thanks to NSF funding, William Stokoe published the 1st ASL dictionary in 1965—revolutionizing how Deaf language and culture were viewed.
https://www.nsf.gov/impacts/asl
The first MRI scan in 1977 changed medicine forever—but it didn’t come out of nowhere. It was built on years of NSF-funded breakthroughs in nuclear magnetic resonance, biophysics, biochemistry, and computer engineering.
https://www.nsf.gov/impacts/mri
In the 1980s, NSF laid the foundation for the internet.
NSFNET, launched in 1986, connected scientists to supercomputers across the country—becoming the de facto internet backbone before commercial services took over in 1995
https://www.nsf.gov/impacts/internet
The internet exists because we invested in science.
Decades before it changed the world, the NSF laid the groundwork for the internet—funding research, building networks, and connecting universities. Without public investment, there would be no world wide web.
https://www.nsf.gov/impacts/internet
Math funded by NSF is saving lives.
Breakthroughs in matching theory led to algorithms that revolutionized kidney donation—helping match patients with the right donors faster and more efficiently.
https://www.nsf.gov/impacts/kidney-exchanges