Well, it is interesting how these things go... Early scientific
leaders were Greek and Egyptian with science traveling into Arabia...
The Romans were not scientists but they were adopters and builders of
technology, especially large civil works, roads, aquaducts, etc...

The countries convulsed with death and destruction at this time in the
middle east, were in the middle ages repositories of science with
mathematics and astronomy prominent... Though neither Egypt nor Arabia
became builders/users of technology based upon their sciences - the
pyramids being an exception in the case of the egyptians... That task
fell onto Europe with the industrial revolution, where Europe was
persued into the revolution by the USA...
As was mentioned the European states wasted their energy, resources,
their scientific and technology leadership, in incrementally increasing
bloody feuds covering some 250 years..

Now the USA seems to be coming to a crossroads where we will either
climb to a new level of scientific and industrial achievements, or
lapse into exhaustion and the penury of socialism and become a has been
begging for scraps at the periphery of the new world leaders, China and
Indoasia... The hemorrhaging of our resources into endless (at least
looking that way) war and death in the middle east by the Bush
administration does not bode well for the rapidly increasing
competition with the Chinese for technological and military leadership
of the world... At this point it looks like the rise, decline, and fall
of the american empire is pushing rapidly into the decline phase...
It's been a brief, if spectacular, ride...

denny