The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 According to its official release, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021. The award winners […]
According to its official release, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2021. The award winners are Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi, respectively. Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how humanity influences it. Giorgio Parisi has contributed to the theory of disordered materials and random processes.
The announcement is really remarkable for the sustainable age. First of all, COP26 was held in November 2021. COP 26 is the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference. Therefore, the Nobel Physics Prize can increase our awareness on climate change. Also, there are still lots of people who are skeptical about climate change and its causes. Thus, the reward will be able to allow us to understand them by more scientific approach.
Secondly, the prize can make people research more various fields and studies. This is because many scientists have a dream to win the Nobel Prize in the future. However, the Noble Physics winners’ research are mostly related to solid-state physics and particle physics in fact. Therefore, this groundbreaking result can incentivize people to challenge new fields.
Our media believes that 2020 is the year to raise our awareness on climate change. In fact, at the year, many countries including Japan declared that they wanted to achieve carbon neutral within few decades. In addition, more cities made a decision to ban the new sales of gasoline or diesel engine vehicles there.
At the same time, we have experienced natural disasters in the end of 2010s and the beginning of 2020s. Winter storms in Texas in the beginning of 2021 were just examples. Many apartments in Europe are not equipped with an air conditioner (AC). It means that they could live comfortably without AC in the past. However, they cannot do now simply because the average temperature is rising.
Therefore, we must take appropriate actions to prevent climate crisis and make our society sustainable. In this sense, our actions are not enough to solve the big issue. For example, Greta Thunberg, a climate activist, advocated that governments did not take enough actions.
Thus, this Nobel Prize can be good opportunities for us as well as governments to rethink how to tackle climate change. What’s more, theories and our thoughts are not enough to change the situation, so we need to take actions immediately.
At the same time, we may understand the importance of basic research from the prize. In this commercial era, many companies seek profit in the short time. As a result, they want to realize innovations and earn money by them as soon as possible. However, there are tons of unsolved problems and unanswered questions around us.
Thus, even though it needs investments, it is better for us to keep basic research. It can help us make our society and the earth better in the long run. In this sense, we may remind the importance of basic research from the prize as well.
