Korea Looks to Emulate Japan's Nobel Prize-winning Scientists
Japan had the honor of seeing four of its citizens win this year's Nobel prizes in Physics and Chemistry. As a result, 13 Japanese people have won the Nobel Prize in science. In contrast, no Korean has ever won a Nobel Prize in science. Why are we lagging behind Japan by a score of 13 to 0? ?ߠFrom a pencil and paper, artisan??s spirit
Japanese Nobel prizes stem from a pencil and a piece of paper. The Yomiuri Shimbun wrote on Wednesday that from all fields within physics, Japan's specialties are theoretical physics and elementary particle physics, where scientists do not require huge laboratories, but simply original ideas that can be written on paper with a pencil in order to succeed.
When it embraced natural science from the West at the end of the 19th century, Japan lagged behind in terms of experimental equipment and the industrial infrastructure to support it. Its first achievement came in 1949 when Hideki Yukawa won the Nobel Prize in Physics for predicting the theoretical existence of mesotrons in elementary particle physics.
Theoretical research does not produce overnight results. Ryoo Ryong, a professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, says Japan has a tradition of passing family businesses down generations and this artisan's spirit is also deeply rooted in the field of science. This is the strength of Japanese science.
?ߠReinventing itself
Following the pencil and piece of paper was a massive influx of scientific research equipment. The particle accelerator at Japan's High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) was built in 1960, while in 1990 Japan constructed the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detecting device 1,000 m below the Earth's surface. Several other Japanese scientific research facilities have become world renowned.
Japan's achievements in the research of neutrinos are being closely monitored by the scientific community, with the country twice capturing Nobel prizes in that field -- in 1998 and in 2002. After winning the Nobel Prize by creating theories on a piece of paper, Japan is now proving them through experimentation and winning more prizes as a result.
?ߠPushing to join the prize-winners
So when will Korean scientists win the Nobel Prize? Perhaps the most likely candidate is Prof. Lim Ji-soon of Seoul National University. In 2003, the U.S.-based Institute for Scientific Information, which publishes the Science Citation Index, surveyed the number of times Nobel Prize-winning papers were cited in other research papers over the past 25 years. Physics prize-winning papers were cited 5,508 times, while chemistry prize-winning papers were cited 4,871 times.
In Korea, Prof. Lim's papers have been cited more than 5,000 times, while around 40 other Korean scientists have been cited over 1,000 times. The ISI selected around 5,000 published researchers whose works are often cited by the international science community; in Korea, chemistry Prof. Park Su-Moon at POSTECH, physics Prof. Kim Soo-bong of Seoul National University and economics Prof. Yoo Byung-sam of Yonsei University were included. In contrast, 258 Japanese scientists appear on that list.
The Korean government announced a plan in July aiming to invite Nobel Prize winners to Korea and establish a world-renowned science and engineering university. But one professor at a private university in Seoul said rather than invite Nobel Prize winners nearing retirement, it would be more productive to send Korean doctoral and master's candidates overseas to study under promising younger researchers.
