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Introduction
Why do Japanese people win Nobel Prizes so often? In addition to the self-reflection and hard work of scientists, Japan's scientific research environment, evaluation mechanism, and funding guarantee are all indispensable.
It is particularly noteworthy that most of the Scientists who won the Nobel Prize in Japan have a relatively good childhood, like to be close to nature, explore nature, like to read, be good at reading, and their parents have played an important role in enlightenment and guidance in their growth process.
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On October 5, 2021, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Japanese-American scientist Syukuro Manabe, German scientist Klaus Hasselmann and Italian scientist Giorgio Parisi were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of their pioneering contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems."
The Nikkei Chinese network reported that the 90-year-old Makoto Shuro, a 90-year-old senior researcher at Princeton University in the United States, who has become a U.S. citizen, first clearly demonstrated the impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations on the climate in the 1960s. Turning the international community's attention to global warming led to the establishment of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
So far, the number of Japanese who have won the Nobel Prize, including those who have become American nationals, has increased to 28, of which 12 have won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
So why do Japanese people win Nobel Prizes so often?
In 2001, Japan introduced the "Second Basic Plan for Science and Technology", which ambitiously stated that it would "win 30 Nobel Prizes in 50 years", which was not a small controversy from Japan to the international community. Previously, in the century-old history of the Nobel Prize, Japan, as a world economic power, had only 9 winners.
If we look at it 20 years ago, Japan's achievements in the Nobel Prize in natural sciences since entering the new century have been even more amazing. Before the "Nobel Prize Project" was proposed in 2001, in the history of Nobel Prizes in the past century, only 6 natural science prize winners were born in Japan, and since this plan was proposed, in the 20 years so far, 20 people in Japan have won Nobel Prizes, and all of them are natural science awards.
Now, only 20 years after the implementation cycle of the 50-year plan, Japan has already produced 20 Nobel Laureates, and the set goal has been achieved by two-thirds, and the momentum of winning the Nobel Prize is really shocking to the world. It is no exaggeration to say that Japan has become the only Asian country in the history of the Nobel Prize that can compete with European and American countries.
When Japan proposed the "Nobel Prize Plan" 20 years ago, not only did the international community think that this was tantamount to a "fool's dream", but even Japan ridiculed that "it is impossible to mass-produce the Nobel Prize like Toyota Motor." The Japanese scientist Ryoji Noyi, who won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, said bluntly that Japan "has no brains" and that "winning 30 Nobel Prizes in 50 years" is purely "arrogant words".
Japan has given birth to 20 Nobel Prize winners in the past 20 years, to a certain extent, it has indeed achieved the "mass production" Nobel Prize, thanks to the thick level of Japanese scientific researchers, coupled with the good reputation brought by continuous awards, it is foreseeable that Japan will maintain the status of the Nobel Prize as a "mass production country" for the foreseeable future.
In the past 20 years, although Japan has a certain gap compared with the United States, which has produced 50 or 60 people, it has surpassed the United Kingdom, France and Germany, which has won many awards in the previous 100 years, and the number of winners ranks second in the world.
It is worth mentioning that although the Nobel laureates counted by Japan include Shiro Manabe, who has become a citizen of the United States, and the previous Yoichiro Minami and Shuji Nakamura, they were all born in Japan and educated in Japan. Take, for example, Shiro Makoto, who had just won the Nobel Prize in Physics, went to the United States in 1958 after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo at the invitation of the National Weather Service (now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
Of the more than 20 Nobel Laureates in Science born in Japan since 2000, more than two-thirds were born before the end of World War II; more than 90% received higher education after the war; 100% completed undergraduate or specialized studies in Japan; and more than 80% achieved groundbreaking achievements in the last three decades of the 20th century. These figures do a good job of revealing some of the group characteristics of Japan's New Century Nobel Laureates in Science.
Based on these statistics, Zhou Cheng, professor of the Department of Philosophy of Peking University and dean of the School of Medical Humanities of Peking University, once examined the social environment in which Japan's Nobel Laureates in the New Century Nobel Prize for Science lived:
1. The emergence of the Nobel Prize in Science "blowout" in Japan in the new century is related to the post-war educational reform;
2. The Japanese Nobel Laureate in Science in the New Century was profoundly influenced by the spiritual temperament of the mentor;
3. Japan's New Century Nobel Laureates in Science benefited from the continuous growth of research and development funding.
It is also particularly noteworthy that most of the Scientists who won the Nobel Prize in Japan have a relatively good childhood, like to be close to nature, explore nature, like to read, good at reading, and their parents have played an important role in enlightenment and guidance in their growth process.
Behind the Repeated Nobel Prizes won by the Japanese, we have summarized the following four major educational and scientific research innovation models of Japanese education and scientific research, which are worth thinking about and learning from.
The Third Educational Reform
Lay the foundation for scientific research innovation
Since the 1970s, the influence of science and technology has been gradually valued in the process of Social Development in Japan, and the great role played by science and technology can be felt in both daily life and scientific research. The Japanese government perceives the positive significance of this change for national development, so it has learned from some developed countries to improve its own scientific and technological level. The development of scientific and technological development is essentially an upgrade of the level of education, how to improve the education system, rational use of educational means, improve the quality of education has become an important problem for Japan to seek development. Against this backdrop, Japan ushered in its third educational reform.
The third educational reform began in 1971, when the Central Education Council proposed to the Minister of Education, The Ministry of Education the Basic Countermeasures for the Comprehensive Expansion and Rectification of School Education in the Future, which clearly pointed out that the overall task of future school education is to undertake the mission of cultivating "personality formation".
In order to achieve this goal, the main contents of the third education reform are as follows:
The first is to advocate the construction of a lifelong education system. With the development of science and technology, the progress of society, in order to cope with various rapid changes, people's requirements for themselves continue to increase, the demand for knowledge continues to increase, people are no longer satisfied with limited school education, but hope to get more learning opportunities, to achieve personal lifelong learning, lifelong development needs.
The second is to pay attention to personalized learning. In the past, the Japanese education system was characterized by relative uniformity, efficiency, equality, and the cultivation of standardized human resources. This practice did make great contributions to Japan's development for a certain period of time, but in the face of the development of the times, this uniform education model hindered the progress of Japanese society to a certain extent. Therefore, in the third education reform, the Japanese government requires that it attach importance to personalized development, emphasize the cultivation of independent thinking ability and creative thinking, and provide a good environment for cultivating high-quality, personalized and innovative talents.
The third is to emphasize the internationalization of education. With the increasing international exchanges and cooperation among countries, cultivating international talents who can serve the development of Japan's society is the core goal of the Japanese government's emphasis on strengthening Japan's international education. The internationalization of education has enabled Japanese students to deeply understand the traditional culture of their own country while being exposed to the diverse cultures of foreign countries, and under the impact of different cultural waves, various new ideas and new models have also emerged, which has greatly promoted the development of Japan's economy and society.
The fourth is to attach importance to the development of education informatization. Beginning in the 1970s, the Japanese government stipulated that courses related to information technology should be introduced at the high school level. At the same time, the Japanese government also clearly pointed out in the third education reform that it is necessary to use modern scientific and technological means to support the development of education, which provides a reliable guarantee for the development of education informatization in Japan.
It can be said that Japan's education reform has played an important role in the construction and improvement of the national education system, innovating the talent training model, improving the national scientific and technological literacy and ability, and improving the overall level of education in the country.
Japanese Basic Education Education Model:
Popular science enlightenment, reading, independent spirit
From the 1990s to the present, Japanese education has developed its own characteristics. The reason why Japanese scientific research can be widely recognized in the international academic community, it is difficult to complete only by relying on government scientific research grants and higher education itself, more relying on the cultivation of social basic education, the Japanese people's spirit of exploration of science from an early age, the solid foundation laid in basic education, so that the country has the motivation to go further and further on the road of science and technology scholarship. There are mainly a few aspects that are worth learning:
1． Contact with nature to generate curiosity is the "origin" of scientific research
"A person's initial, naïve interest and desire to explore through contact with nature at an early age is a very important scientific enlightenment education, and it is the way to produce a generation of scientific giants." Yoshinori Osumi, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, said.
Since childhood, Yoshinori Osumi has loved nature, collecting insects is a big hobby, and he is also the author of science textbooks for elementary schools. In his view, let the children fall in love with nature, fall in love with science, and have a valuable curiosity about the world, which is the starting point of everything.
"[As a child] I was passionate about making airplane models and semiconductor radios, and in the summer I liked to catch fish, fireflies, collect insects in small rivers, and walk in the wild with a net in my hand for a day. Picking purple, wild celery, mutong, bayberry, and wild strawberries, you can feel the natural changes of the four seasons. Looking up at the stars in the sky makes it easy to identify the constellations, and the Milky Way rushes like a river on the ground. I didn't think about it at the time, but today as a researcher of molecular biology in the natural sciences, this experience is the origin of everything. ”
2008 Nobel laureate in chemistry Shu Shimomura said of why he embarked on the path of science, saying: "I didn't do research for application or any other benefit, just to figure out why jellyfish emit light." "It should be said that maintaining a curiosity about nature and the world around them is the direct reason for leading Nobel laureates into the world of scientific research."
For the 2002 Nobel Prize winner in physics, Xiao Chai Changjun, his most memorable time was when he was a child chasing and racing with his classmates in the back mountains of school, pulling vegetables from the farmhouse, and playing freely.
From many Japanese Nobel laureates, we can also see their experience of getting close to nature and observing nature.
Gao Yimin, deputy director of the Comparative Education Research Center of Beijing Normal University, told reporters that although Japan belongs to the island country and there are many unfavorable factors in geographical conditions, Japanese people often have a sense of closeness and pride in their natural environment, and are also more sensitive to various natural phenomena, which is not only reflected in daily folklore, but also reflected in Japanese literature and art, such as Yasunari Kawabata's "Snow Country" and other novels. Japanese school education also attaches great importance to keeping children close to nature, and many kindergartens and primary and secondary schools combine geographical conditions to preserve local natural characteristics according to local conditions.
Many kindergartens and elementary and secondary schools in Japan will combine geographical conditions to construct educational scenes. The documentary "Childhood in Other Places" introduces a kindergarten in Tokyo, Japan, the Rattan Kindergarten. The school is designed as a double-decker elliptical structure, the lower floor is a classroom, and the upper roof is a circular playground, children can run on the big roof, like a giant donut?
At the beginning of the design, there were three large trees on site, and if the large trees were retained, it would increase the difficulty of architectural design. The school eventually decided to keep it, "If the tree is cut down, the children will have nothing to play in circles." We designed the tree as part of the building, allowing the tree to penetrate through the building. ”
A tree runs through the classroom from the ground and grows to the outside of the roof
To encourage children's instincts to climb and explore nature, nets are pulled around the tree. It is such a simple net, which makes the children have a lot of fun, and they really like to drill into this net...
Sometimes, a net of a tree can hold 40 children
We often say "starting line". However, the real "starting line" is not the indoctrination of knowledge that began at a young age, nor is it to brush up all day to get good grades and get into a good school, but to help children cultivate enthusiasm, interest and ability to learn.
As the Norwegian art philosopher Jean Rohr Buyokwald said, "Children need time, life needs time, and learning requires maturity." Nature itself has taught us that tomatoes that ripen in the open air and in the sun taste much better than tomatoes grown in greenhouses. For tomatoes, the wait is worth it; it's also worth it for kids. ”
2. Reading leads the direction of life growth
In the 2002 Nobel Prize in physics, Xiao Chai Changjun confessed in the book "I am not a good student", and when he was in elementary school, the class teacher Kaneko Hideo gave him a book - "How Physics Is Born" by Einstein, which made him extremely interested in physics and eventually embarked on the road of physics research.
Kenichi Fukui, the 1981 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, wrote in "Straight Talk Education": "In my entire junior high school and high school years, the one who influenced me the most was Fabre, who I can call the teacher of the soul and played an extremely important role in my life. ”
Kensaburo Oe, the winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Literature, had the habit of copying books since he was a child, and he confessed in the book: "I wrote a lot of notes for reading, and continued this way of reading, which has made me here today." ”
From the words and writings of several winners, it is clear that reading is of great significance to their growth, and several of them have strengthened their life direction because of reading.
In 2001, the Japanese Diet passed the Law on Promoting Children's Reading Activities, which requires the state, localities, schools, families and enterprises to work together to create conditions for children to read, and designates April 23 of each year as "Children's Reading Day", and has since formulated two specific plans to implement the law. The reason why Japan is very eager to promote children's reading activities is, on the one hand, because the current development of modern media such as television and the Internet has a negative impact on the reading of paper media, on the other hand, reading paper media can indeed be used as a useful supplement to classroom education and can provide richer nutrients. At present, children's reading activities are vigorously carried out in various parts of Japan, and every year we commend units that have contributed to the promotion of children's reading. In addition, many newspapers, research institutes and social research institutions in Japan insist on long-term investigation of children's reading status, such as the "Mainichi Shimbun" newspaper has conducted a school reading survey every year since 1954 to announce the results to the public, causing the whole society to pay attention to reading.
3. Family education focuses on cultivating children's self-reliance
If reading is an intrinsic factor in the success of Nobel laureates, then good homeschooling is an indispensable external condition.
Ryoji Noi, a 2001 Nobel laureate in chemistry, said he was determined to study chemistry because of his father's influence. When he was 12 years old, his father took him to a new product showcase for a company, and the newly released yellow nylon wire extracted from water, air and coal made him feel that "chemistry is so amazing" that he has been inseparable from chemistry ever since.
Influenced by his father, Fukui Kenichi developed the habit of studying hard and thinking diligently, writing in the book: "As for studying, my parents have adopted a non-interference attitude, and have not once said such things as 'study well'. However, my family is often shrouded in a serious atmosphere that makes children involuntarily want to learn. ”
Like China, Japan has always attached great importance to family education. Families pay attention to cultivating children's self-reliance and instilling the concept of not relying on their parents from an early age.
4. A large number of educational experiments to promote the connection between education and reality
Japanese education, like education in some Eastern countries, has drawbacks such as indoctrination and re-examination. However, before World War II, Japan was influenced by the new educational movement and pragmatic education, and a large number of educational experiments were carried out by the people, which greatly promoted the connection between education and real life.
Shuji Nakamura was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014 and was hailed by the Royal Swedish Academy as the "Edison of the 21st Century".
Coming from a fisherman's family, he did not excel in school, and was admitted to Japan's third-rate, unknown universities. But he won the Nobel Prize, how did he do it? There is only one secret, insist on exercising your hands-on ability. His hands-on ability is very strong, and he has to put the knowledge he has learned into practice almost every day to test.
After countless repeated experiments, Shuji Nakamura finally developed the world's first artificial blue light, invented the blue light-emitting diode that was considered "impossible", and became the "father of blue light" in one fell swoop.
In the era of artificial intelligence, it is not enough to require children to score high on the roll, and children's hands-on ability, collaboration ability, and scientific thinking ability are becoming extremely important.
After the war, Japan also absorbed the educational theories and experiences of Western developed countries in the process of continuous exploration. For example, Japanese kindergartens and elementary schools do not one-sidedly emphasize the transfer of knowledge, but particularly emphasize children's life experience; compared with basic education, Japanese middle schools have a tendency to take exams, which was once more serious, but high schools implement a credit system, and students have a relatively large freedom to choose courses.
Japan's basic education attaches great importance to the development of a variety of extracurricular activities, many schools mobilize almost the whole school teachers to participate in the extracurricular club activities to guide, and even some student activities (such as the national high school baseball game, the national student and children's invention exhibition, etc.) have become a major event of concern to all the people.
Scientific research requires sensibility and intuition, and the best time to cultivate this sensibility and intuition is the playing mud-covered teenager.
Government and society
Education and science are admired and respected
1. Teachers have high entry thresholds, good educational qualifications, and a large space for teaching freedom
Japan has a world-leading group of teachers with strict requirements for teacher selection and training. First of all, the entry threshold for teachers is very high, the teacher examination is controlled by the local government, the content is difficult, and every three years will do a teacher business assessment. Second, Japan has adopted a teacher employment mechanism. Teachers in Japan are not employed by schools, but by local governments. Teachers' workplaces change every three years until they gradually stabilize in the later stages, a practice that ensures that the best quality teachers are assigned to the places where they are most needed, and that the most precious resources tend to favor the students who need the most help. Finally, teachers have a great deal of autonomy over how to enhance student performance. Japanese teachers attach great importance to the "pedagogy", attaching importance to cultivating students' thinking ability, that is, teaching students how to think rather than instilling knowledge, encouraging students to find problems and solve problems, and cultivating students' critical thinking.
In addition, there is a large space for teaching freedom for primary and secondary school teachers in Japan. Japanese theoretical circles tend to emphasize the teaching freedom of primary and secondary school teachers, and in fact, teachers have a large space for curriculum design and teaching inquiries on the basis of the syllabus.
2. Respect for education and science: The yen banknotes are printed with the words "study hard."
Coins are the business card of a country. Most of the banknotes commonly used in various countries in the world have portraits of people printed on them, and almost all of them are politicians singing solo dramas. For example, on the dollar is the founding fathers Washington and Franklin, on the pound is Queen Elizabeth II, Grand Marshal Wellington, the yuan from 1 to 100 yuan are Grandpa Mao, on the rupee is Gandhi, on the Vietnamese dong is Ho Chi Minh, on the Thai baht is the king of Thailand...
Look at Japan. At present, the popular 2004 version of the yen on the market does not have a politician. So who are the people printed on the yen? The answer is, thinkers, scientists, writers, educators... In Japan, they hold a high status, far beyond the average politician.
For example, the 10,000-yen portrait printed below is fukuzawa Yukichi, a famous Enlightenment thinker in modern Japan, an outstanding educator in the Meiji period, and the founder of Keio University, a famous private university in Japan. The Japanese considered him to be the most important figure in Japan's strength, so he put it on the largest coin, the 10,000 yen bill.
For 5,000 yen, higuchi leaf is printed on it. She is an excellent Female Writer in Japan, who only lived for 24 years, but left many literary classics for the Japanese, such as "The Great Chinese New Year's Eve", "Turbid Stream", "Green Plum Bamboo Horse" and so on. She was the first female portrait in the history of Japanese banknotes to appear on the front.
The 1,000 yen is printed with Hideyoshi Noguchi. He is a Japanese bacteriologist and biologist who is known as "Japan's National Treasure". He died while studying yellow fever in Africa after contracting the virus. On his tombstone inscription reads: "He devoted his life to science, he lived for mankind and died for mankind." ”
In the 1993 edition, 5,000 yen was printed on Niwado Inazō, a famous Japanese educator and founder of Tokyo Women's University.
The following 1993 edition of 1,000 yen is printed with Natsume Soseki, and anyone who knows a little about modern Japanese literature has read his works, the most famous of which is the novel "I Am a Cat". Lu Xun once commented on him: "He is the mainstream of shin-Edo art in the Meiji literary world, and there is no match in the world." ”
Overall, these are the elite figures of the Japanese nation. Some of them have introduced foreign cultures to inject fresh blood into Japan, such as Fukuzawa Yukichi, and some have not only enthusiastically disseminated foreign cultures, but also further introduced Japanese culture to the world and let the world know about Japan, such as Nitodo Inazuzo and Natsume Soseki.
In the hearts of the Japanese, these people, like politicians, have had a decisive influence on Japan's progress and are powerful heroes of Japan.
The Japanese also have an admirable "craftsman spirit". The so-called "craftsman spirit" is to do only one thing in a lifetime, and to do this to the extreme. Unlike the Japanese "craftsman spirit", Chinese advocates a fickle "Internet thinking". I always hope to take shortcuts and cut short paths, and disdain "building a hard village and fighting a hard battle".
Good scientific research mechanism and relaxed scientific research environment
with huge scientific investment
Most of Japan's 19 Nobel Laureates in Science in the New Century were born before the end of World War II; almost all of them entered national or public universities after Japan's surrender in 1945; and most of them entered the graduate schools of top national universities before and after Japan hosted the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964; after Japan's GDP surpassed West Germany in 1972 to become the world's second largest economy after the United States, they made major research breakthroughs in famous comprehensive universities or corporate research and development departments. Thus laying the foundation for winning the Nobel Prize in Science in the new century. Therefore, Japan's good scientific research mechanism, relaxed scientific research environment and huge scientific research investment are important factors in cultivating Nobel Prize winners.
1. Japan's New Century Nobel Laureate in Science benefited from the continuous increase in research and development funding
It is not enough to rely only on subjective will to engage in scientific research, and it is necessary to have advanced instruments and equipment and sufficient research funds, which need to be supported by a solid technical and economic foundation. Fortunately, when Japan's new century Nobel Laureate in Science devoted himself to the field of scientific research, he coincided with a period of rapid economic growth in Japan.
In the 1960s, Japan maintained double-digit economic growth for most years. As a result, Japan's economic growth significantly exceeded the goal set out in the 1960 National Income Doubling Plan to more than triple its gross national product over the next 10 years. Japan's GDP was only 16 trillion yen in 1960, but by 1970 Japan's GDP had soared to 72 trillion yen. In addition to the "National Income Doubling Plan," Japan has also formulated a "10-Year Plan for Science and Technology, which echoes this goal, and proposes that it is necessary to increase the total investment in research and development to 2% of the gross national product as soon as possible according to the standards of European and American countries." In fact, Japan's total R&D investment in 1970 reached 6.48 times that of 1960, of which R&D expenditure to universities increased by 7.1 times. The numerical target of 2 per cent was also achieved in 1970.
The Japanese government and companies attach great importance to the investment in scientific research, and their scientific research funding as a proportion of GDP is 3.67% (2007), the highest in the world. Although the university's research funding accounts for only 18.3% of the total research funding (2006), the structure of the university's research funding is completely opposite to that of enterprises and other scientific research institutions, with basic research accounting for the main part (about 55%), and basic research is infinitely close to the hotbed of the Nobel Prize.
In the matter of scientific research, especially in the fields of science such as chemistry, biology, engineering, and medicine, which focus on applications, it is difficult to make key breakthroughs without financial support.
For example, the key achievement of physicist Takaaki Kajita, a 2015 Japanese Nobel laureate, in the field of "neutrinos" is inseparable from the super Kamoka probe, which was built in 1991 and cost about 10.4 billion yen (about 630 million yuan). The industry generally believes that without this world-leading instrument, Kajita would have made a Nobel Prize-level research almost impossible.
That is to say, the strong economic strength of the country has laid a solid foundation for the personal development of scientists and has become an indispensable and necessary condition.
In terms of the proportion of scientific research investment, Japan is higher than the United States. Japan's scientific research funding accounts for about 3% of GDP, ranking first among developed countries.
Gao Yimin, deputy director of the Comparative Education Research Center of Beijing Normal University, once told the media that the Japanese government and enterprises attach great importance to the investment in scientific research, and their scientific research funds account for 3.67% of GDP (2007), which is the highest in the world. Although the university's research funding accounts for only 18.3% of the total research funding (2006), the structure of the university's research funding is completely opposite to that of enterprises and other scientific research institutions, with basic research accounting for the main part (about 55%), and basic research is infinitely close to the hotbed of the Nobel Prize.
In the last 20 years of the last century, except for the first three years of the bubble economy, Japan's R&D investment has generally been rising. During this period, Japan's total annual R&D expenditure increased from 4.7 trillion yen to 14.7 trillion yen. Moreover, in the past 20 years, Japan's R&D investment intensity has further climbed from 2.1% to 2.9%, leaving Germany by 0.5 percentage points and nearly 0.3 percentage points higher than that of the United States.
Trend chart of total R&D expenditure in major countries
Trend chart of R&D investment intensity of major countries
2. Scientific research is supreme, and basic research is "most favored" in university research.
According to an international survey of Teachers at Carnegie University in 1992 and 2007, about 70 percent of Japanese university teachers paid more attention to the latter in teaching and research. At the National University, this "scientific research first" atmosphere can be said to be even stronger. As a result, university teachers in Japan who are objectively able to engage in scientific research and subjectively want to engage in scientific research abound. Although this mode of attaching importance to knowledge production over knowledge dissemination, and even the application of knowledge, has caused uneasiness among the Japanese people, it does have many advantages in the selection and training of innovative talents.
The tutors of Japanese New Century Nobel Prize winners in university studies, whether they are elderly or Mesozoic, have mostly experienced World War II, and have a deep understanding of the cruelty and importance of scientific and technological competition, so everyone can be said to be desperate, and they have a very clear understanding of the relationship between solving scientific and technological problems and publishing journal papers, and the requirements for the novelty of scientific research topics and the accuracy of scientific research data are very strict. This spiritual temperament will of course be passed on to their disciples through words and deeds. Their disciples, under the command of their ears, also have a completely different understanding of the necessity of Japan taking the road of building a country through science and technology and quickly becoming one of the world's scientific and technological powers, and they are willing to make unremitting efforts to enhance Japan's scientific and technological strength.
In 1964, the Tokyo Olympics successfully demonstrated Japan's scientific and technological prowess, and in 1965, Asahina won the Nobel Prize in Physics after Hideki Yukawa. These successes enabled the mentors of the Japanese New Century Nobel Prize winners to quickly restore their self-confidence, and at the same time greatly boosted the scientific and technological self-confidence of their disciples. These young students believe that everything is possible, as long as they work hard and have the courage to overcome difficulties, they may make world-class scientific and technological contributions. Therefore, they are not willing to continue to simply imitate Western scholars, but aim at the forefront of world science and technology and boldly advance to no man's land. If they were only willing to do follow-up research in order to publish more papers at that time, and were unwilling to challenge the world's scientific and technological problems, it was difficult to imagine that they could achieve so many original scientific and technological achievements that attracted the world's attention later.
3. The scientific research environment is independent and free from interference is an important reason
In addition to the guarantee of the scientific research environment, the consistent diligence and perseverance of Japanese scientists is an important factor in their ability to quickly catch up with developed countries in Europe and the United States and even maintain a leading position in the world in many fields. The free and independent research of Japanese researchers is also the key to continuous results in the field of research.
The channels and forms for Japanese university professors and research institute personnel to apply for topics are actually a project registration system, and there is no need for approval at all levels, and a certain share of funds will be quickly allocated to ensure their research for several years.
In other words, independence, freedom and undisturbedness are the main reasons why Japanese scientists frequently win Nobel Prizes. Most of Japan's universities are research universities, and teaching is driven by scientific research, rather than teaching schools, which is an important reason for the frequent production of high-quality scientific research results in Japan.
The high professional prestige and generous salaries of Japanese scientists also provide favorable conditions for them to devote themselves to teaching and research. In terms of economic income, the results of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's "Basic Statistical Survey on Wage Structure" show that the average salary of japanese university professors in 2008 was about 11.22 million yen (about 900,000 yuan), which greatly exceeded the 6.63 million yen of national civil servants.
4. Comprehensive improvement of scientific and technological innovation "soil" seems to have greater results than the targeted cultivation of scientific and technological innovation "seedlings"
Among japan's 19 Nobel laureates in science in the new century, many of them did not perform well before making the foundational achievements of the award. For example, after graduating from the Pharmacy Department affiliated to Nagasaki Medical University, Shimomura only studied at Nagoya University for two years, and he discovered green fluorescent protein during his postdoctoral work at Princeton University; Koichi Tanaka stayed in the grade when he was a student at Tohoku University, and when he won the award, he had no graduate degree and overseas study experience, nor sci journal papers or senior titles; Andra Nakamura shuji, after obtaining a master's degree from the unknown Tokushima University, worked for a long time at a "township enterprise" with only a few hundred people, Nichia Chemical Industry Company. There, he developed a high-efficiency blue light-emitting diode; Hiroshi Amano, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics at the same time as Shuji Nakamura, was only a graduate student in the Akasaki Laboratory of Nagoya University when he made the award-winning foundational results; and Masatoshi Koshiba's early academic performance was very poor, and after the peak of creativity, scientific research gradually entered a better state. This means that no matter how the Japanese government selects top-notch talents for key support, it is difficult to match these researchers who have average conditions and mediocre performance before making award-winning groundbreaking results. Therefore, there is a big blind spot in the field of vision for future science and technology stars that can escape the normal track and make major breakthroughs by relying on the existing scientific and technological authorities.
In fact, the Japanese government has never implemented a research funding program for top-notch talents in the last century. Because Japanese universities practice a high degree of autonomy, the power of officials of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Sports, Science and Technology is seriously constrained, and it is difficult to directly interfere with the operation and governance of universities; moreover, these officials are far from the grass-roots level, and have limited understanding of the nature of scientific research work and the characteristics of scientific and technological talents, so it is very difficult for them to take the lead in selecting top-notch talents with Nobel Prize potential and bear the consequences of decision-making. Therefore, the emergence of the Nobel Prize in Science in Japan in the new century is largely due to the Japanese government's cultivation of science and culture and the improvement of the scientific research environment, rather than the selection and breeding of "seedlings" for scientific and technological innovation.
In any case, Japan can turn the "wild words" released at the beginning into the reality of "science and technology to build a country", and the above four major scientific research and education model innovations are very worthy of respect and learning.
This article is supplemented and edited according to Xinhua News Agency, Caixin Network, Southern Metropolis Daily, Surging News Network, Intellectuals, "The Journey of Reading", Guohu Network, etc