[inglor_cz]

While good amenities may matter for certain types of research (biotech), what about disciplines such as maths, which require good thinking, a piece of paper to draw on, and that's about it? If you look at the results of the International Mathematical Olympiad, many of the really successful countries (Russia, Hungary, Romania, Iran) aren't very rich.

A possible explanation would be brain-drain: talented mathematicians leaving too-poor Oxford for better pay in the US. Does that happen?

[908B64B197]

> many of the really successful countries (Russia, Hungary, Romania, Iran) aren't very rich

While the US could use (homebuilt) computers to solve engineering issues, the Russians had to resort to manual calculations. The eastern block always lagged behind in terms of computing.

> Does that happen?

All the time.

Post 2016 the messaging from most commonwealth countries (UK, Canada, Australia) seemed to be that they were going to be the ones bennefiting from a brain drain of americans leaving the country. Canada was supposed to become an "AI Superpower" and Universities in the UK were supposed to be where innovation was going to happen next due to the perceived hostility of the United States to foreing talent. I recall someone pitching the "Silicon Roundabout" and that Cambridge and Oxford were going to be the new Stanford and MIT.

It's interesting, in retrospective, to see how wrong these predictions were.

The top destination for top tier UK scientists and researchers is the US. [0]

[0] http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-bra...

[inglor_cz]

I grew up behind the Iron Curtain and yes, computational power was sorely lacking. Calculators were sold on the black market for enormous money.

But despite this fact, actual maths was on a high level both in the satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union itself. Notably, translated Soviet mathematical textbooks are still rather popular in the Anglosphere among people who want to dive into higher mathematics deeply.

Some of those books were literally written at the same time when ordinary Soviet citizens queued for food.

[keiferski]

I think the number of purely mental fields is fairly small, especially in technology.

More than that, though, are how amenities affect future applicants. If I was a prospective student choosing between Oxford and say, Princeton, the quality of the campus and amount of resources available would affect my decision. My impression was that Oxbridge is very much about maintaining and continuing the traditions of the UK more than anything else.

[Symbiote]

As a tourist in Oxford or Princeton, how can you tell what resources are available?

[keiferski]

Of course, a lot of things are not accessible to tourists. But it’s fairly easy to see inside most buildings and generally just tell that e.g. the library is smaller or that the department of X is in a 8-story modern building vs. a 2-story old one. That doesn’t always correlate to “resources available” but as another commenter put it, American universities are practically small city-states.

[pmyteh]

Academic pay is vastly higher in comparable US institutions, and it's fairly easy to get a work visa as an academic. The brain drain is probably weaker than you would expect because so few of us went into academia for the money, but I definitely know of talented people who have left Oxford for the US with money as one of the key reasons.