“How did Kyoto produce more Nobel Prize winners than Tokyo University?”
Recently, an interesting analysis appeared in Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
A total of 27 Japanese Nobel Prize winners in the natural science category were awarded this year, including 10 from Kyoto University. It overwhelms Japan’s most prestigious Tokyo University (six). Scholars from Kyoto University who interviewed the media cited geographical characteristics far from the capital (about 370 kilometers southwest of Tokyo) as one of the secrets.
It is said that he focused on research relatively freely from the pressure on the performance of Tokyo officials to let go of his hands.
The emotional factor of ‘academic style’ is also noticeable. The eccentricity of tolerating quirky and pointed ideas has produced original research results. Ryoji Noyori, a Kyoto University graduate who received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, explains this as “the result of pursuing the ‘world’s only’ rather than the ‘world’.” This means that destructive results are possible only when challenging “what is not in the world” rather than the best.
Why sharp talent is important is explained by the investment list of Western ants, who are struggling with U.S. stocks. Larry Page (Google), who broke the existing mainstream search engine method and developed a method to value web pages, Jensen Huang (NVIDIA), who expanded his GPU to a high-performance computing tool, Reed Hastings (Netflix), who opened the door to Internet streaming, Mark Benioff (Salesforce), who changed software services to cloud-based subscription models, and Elon Musk (SpaceX), who opened the era of space rocket “reuse,” are eccentric founders who changed the world’s game.
The Lee Jae-myung government will establish a “National Scientist System” and select 100 national scientists. We live in a time when science and start-up are inextricably linked. Officials in charge should abandon the idea of receiving a letter of recommendation from each university and find such a “sharp researcher” by running on campus and businesses.
The system is a must-win as soon as 100 famous names are deduced based on years of service, university signage, and academic commitment. May the world enjoy the legacy, not 100 people.
[Editor Lee Jaechul]
AloJapan.com