China is the rising star in science, say Shaw Prize winners

When cosmologist John Peacock, a winner of this year's Shaw Prize for Astronomy, looks into the future of science, he sees China.

"It's only a matter of time before science becomes a Chinese-dominated enterprise," the University of Edinburgh professor said, adding that science in Britain was living on past glories.

"We have a culture - at least a culture takes a long time to build up - but young people can quickly make up for the experience that old people have.

"The energy and available resources in China will eventually make up for [the] inherited advantage that older scientific cultures have, and we hope they still want to collaborate with us."

Fellow winner Shaun Cole, physics professor at Durham University, agreed. Cole, who has worked with seven Chinese astronomers at Durham, said: "It's not just the money and the computers they are putting in, it is also the fact they are very highly trained and dedicated people. They are making a real impression in our research."

Peacock, Cole and Daniel Eisenstein, astronomy professor at Harvard University, shared the prize for astronomy, presented on Wednesday. Half of the US$1 million award went to the British team and the rest to the American professor.

Cole and Peacock took part in a survey that analysed 220,000 galaxies, enabling the construction of a three-dimensional map of their positions. Eisenstein was involved in a project that has mapped 25 per cent of the sky.