Sunday, May 21, 2006
Big in Japan
Tom Waits isn't the only one. Heisuke Hironaka, Fields Medal-winner for some of the most difficult mathematical proofs of all time, has appeared in advertisements and on billboards in his native country. Leo Esaki is still popular, more than 30 years after he won the Nobel Prize in physics; he didn't even have time for a brief interview with Nature because of a packed social calendar.
David Howell, chair of the East Asian Studies Department at Princeton University, explains that in Asia, "There is a perceived connection between scientific achievement—measured above all by the receipt of Nobel Prizes—and a nation's stature in the world." Nobel Prizes are a metric on par with GDP, Howell says, as a yardstick of progress.
Asians fawn over what the scientists wear and eat (like American movie stars, they often get comped), as well as their private lives—their wives are hounded for gossip on how their husbands are with the housekeeping.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Chen Ning Yang, 82, married a 28-year-old grad student and caused more of a stir in his native China than Donald Trump did when he wed Melania. As NASA and the Russian space programs falter, the Chinese can't stop lauding their taikonauts, who orbited the Earth last year, with elaborate ceremonies, myriad titles and trips to the Hong Kong Disneyland.
