The possibility of Elder Yuan winning the Nobel Prize is really unlikely, which is not to say that Academician Yuan Longping's ability is not good, but the direction is not right. According to the criteria for judging the Nobel Prize, Yuan Lao's contributions are not easy to win.
First of all, although the Nobel Prize is currently the world's highest honor in the field of science, it is actually limited. It was founded with five prizes, namely the Physics Prize, the Chemistry Prize, the Peace Prize, the Physiology or Medicine Prize, and the Literary Prize, and later an Economics Prize. Only those who have "made the greatest contribution to mankind" in these fields can enter the Nobel Prize, and the rest depends on luck.
Academician Yuan Longping is engaged in hybrid rice research, which belongs to agricultural science, which is different from the main direction of the major scientific awards of the Nobel Prize, and has a congenital disadvantage in competition. If you are engaged in agricultural science, it is naturally difficult for you to compete with researchers who are engaged in physics, chemistry, and biomedicine.
Since the establishment of the Nobel Prize, there have been nearly a thousand Nobel prize winners, and there is only one who has really won awards in the field of agricultural sciences. That is, the winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Finnish scientist Virtanin. His research contribution was to develop a method of preparing silage, which is simply the invention of a sauerkraut for animals to eat. It can prevent the decay of high-quality roughage without affecting its use and nutritional value, and solve the problem of shortage of roughage for high-quality livestock in winter.
Of course, the reason why Virtanin was able to win the award is more because of its research direction, biased towards the field of chemistry, after all, sauerkraut is such a thing, how to ferment.
And for those who study hybrid rice like Academician Yuan Longping, the Nobel Prize involves the cross-correlation of disciplines, which is much less, and the difficulty of winning the award is naturally greater. Of course, it cannot be said here that those who engage in hybrid rice are completely ineligible to enter the selection range.
After all, the essence of hybrid rice is still to follow the classic Genetics of Mendelians, which belongs to a large branch of the field of biological sciences. In the more than 100 years since the Establishment of the Nobel Prize, there have been many winners engaged in genetic research. Therefore, according to this logic, Academician Yuan Longping is not without the opportunity to win the award.
However, there is a premise here, that is, Academician Yuan Longping needs to have a pioneering and significant theoretical contribution in this field. Because the Nobel Prize is a very forward-looking thing, it may have nothing to do with your daily life, and it is possible that you will not be able to touch its results for the rest of your life.
And this point happens to be the shortcomings of Academician Yuan Longping. Because the research he is engaged in does not have too many theoretical breakthroughs, let alone any initiative. The so-called hybrid rice is an operation that uses different varieties of rice to hybridize and carry out excellent trait complementarity.
The principle is actually very simple, that is, with reference to the mendelian genetic law, the use of genetic factors separation and free combination, the birth of new varieties. The famous Mendel pea experiment, friends who have been to high school should not be too unfamiliar. I really can't understand, mules have always seen it, right? It is born from the hybridization of male donkeys and mares, and has the excellent attributes of both donkeys and horses. For example, mules have the size of horses, are stronger than donkeys, and can see more things. At the same time, mules also have the endurance of donkeys and are more persistent than horses.
This is actually the same meaning as hybrid rice. Because there are many kinds of rice, the characteristics of different rice seeds are also very different, some particles are full but lack taste; some have strong adaptability, various disease resistance attributes, but they do not produce much grain; and some rice, with high yields and good nutritional value, are easy to get sick and have low survival rates.
Then according to Mendel's genetic law, as long as these rice are crossed, it is possible to select rice that is both disease-resistant, yielding, and delicious.
This method of bringing together crops of different traits through hybridization has been tried more than a hundred years ago. Like hybrid corn, hybrid sorghum, it all comes from this way. The concept of hybrid rice was proposed by American agronomists as early as the 1920s and 1930s. Even the three-line hybridization method that we often talk about is the first to be proposed and used by Japanese scientists. What is more worth mentioning is that even these people who walk ahead of Elder Yuan have not won the Nobel Prize.
Therefore, Academician Yuan Longping's hybrid rice does not actually have the initiative, lacks the support of the research system, and cannot come up with much theoretical summary. In this way, it is difficult to win the Nobel Prize.
Of course, a simple principle does not mean that the operation is easy. In fact, this is a big project that requires a lot of energy and time. Trying to find hybrid rice suitable for breeding and breeding in the vast wilderness is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Before Academician Yuan Longping, whether it was hybrid rice or three-line hybridization, it only stayed in the laboratory stage. Because the varieties they cultivate cannot be stable and sustained breeding, they naturally cannot carry out large-scale promotion and thus complete the industrialization of hybrid rice.
It was Academician Yuan Longping who found that it was "natural hybrid rice" in the experimental field of the agricultural school, braving the scorching sun, and found the "natural hybrid rice" among thousands of rice plants, and then after continuous cultivation and screening, the theory of hybrid rice became a reality.
In general, Academician Yuan Longping's hybrid rice is the result of practice on the basis of established scientific basis and research methods. This achievement is more in the field of engineering technology than in the field of scientific research. Why is Academician Yuan Longping an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and not an academician of the Academy of Sciences? Here's why.
Therefore, not getting the Nobel Prize is not a problem of Academician Yuan Longping's ability, but a problem of the Nobel Prize selection mechanism, and this research direction itself is not suitable for competing for this award. The most favorable evidence is that, to date, not a single practitioner of agricultural science engaged in hybrid crops has won the Nobel Prize in scientific research. As the father of the Green Revolution, Dr. Norman Bologge, who studied hybrid wheat, although he won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of high-yield wheat, it was the Nobel Peace Prize. No way, the prize mechanism does not allow it.
It is precisely because of the limitations of the Nobel Prize in agriculture that Dr. Bolog came up with a World Food Prize, which is the highest honor in the field of agriculture, known as the "Nobel Prize" in the field of food and agriculture, and Academician Yuan Longping is one of the winners.
In addition, another agricultural field award known as the "Nobel Prize in Agriculture", the Wolf Prize for Agriculture, Academician Yuan Longping is also the winner.
Another point is that Academician Yuan Longping is also the winner of the first national supreme science and technology award, as well as the order of the republic and other honors, which are the greatest affirmation of the country's contribution to Yuan Lao. Obviously, the contributions and achievements of Academician Yuan Longping have long been recognized by the whole world, and there is no need to rely on the Nobel Prize to prove it.
In fact, people like Yuan Lao, he doesn't care about the honor of the "Nobel Prize" at all. He is not a man who pursues fame and fortune, if he cares about these things, he will not just graduate and run to a poor and backward, remote and backward poor ravine, braving the scorching sun, and being with rice in the fields. Day after day, year after year, even after defeat and blow, he never gave up. You must know that Yuan Longping was the first generation of college students after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and in his time, college students were the proud sons of heaven and had a bright future.
To sum up, because of the limitations of the selection mechanism, academician Yuan Longping has little hope for winning the Nobel Prize. Even if it is a Nobel Peace Prize that has a precedent, there is not much chance, after all, Elder Yuan has not done anything bad.
However, there is no need for everyone to feel regrets and regrets for Elder Yuan. The great name of Yuan Longping has long been affirmed by the whole world, and there is no need for the Nobel Prize to add luster to it.
Therefore, for Elder Yuan, it does not matter whether he won the Nobel Prize or not. Some people win Nobel Prizes to add glory to themselves. And some people win Nobel Prizes to add glory to the Nobel Prize. Yuan Longping is undoubtedly the latter, if the Nobel Prize is awarded to Yuan Lao, it is the glory of the Nobel Prize, on the contrary, it is the loss of the Nobel Prize itself.
Today, although Elder Yuan has left us, we need to remember this great name. The satiety should always remember Yuan Gong, he is the contemporary Shennong. Without his hybrid rice, many people may not even have enough to eat, let alone other things.