Boasting a dedication to finding answers, this year’s Nobel Prize winners said on Sunday that the pursuit of knowledge is constant, adding it must remain above politics.
The winners of the 2003 Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics and economics, agreed that continued research is the key to making strides in their respective fields, but added that a sense of wonder and awe doesn’t hurt, either.
”It’s the beauty of science and the drive of curious people to find out how the world around is working,” said American Roderick MacKinnon, who shared the chemistry prize with Peter Agre. ”We’ve never actually proved anything except that we were wrong about what we thought yesterday.”
”The greatest happiness is when I think of a solution — though it may be wrong,” said Alexei Abrikosov (75) who shared this year’s physics prize with Vitaly Ginzburg (87) and Anthony Leggett, (65).
Abrikosov is a Russian and American citizen based at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois; Ginzburg is a Russian based at the PN Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow; and Leggett is a British and American citizen based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Robert Engle, who shared the economics prize with Briton Clive Granger, said years of research haven’t dulled his passion for problem solving.
”In many ways, figuring out the problem is the moment of which I find exciting,” he said. ”The formulation of a problem that can lead ultimately to a solution is the key moment and is unmatched.”
Granger said joy of problem solving also provides another benefit because ”when you’ve solved that problem, the solution solves many other problems in that same area.”
Abrikosov and Ginzburg, who both began their careers in the former Soviet Union, said the country was hobbled by its concrete grip on scientists there before its 1991 collapse.
Abrikosov left Russia because of changes in the way science was viewed there.
”I wanted to get out of that and wanted to return to science. It was very difficult to do that there,” he said. ”I understood that … with these changes there was no place for this science — the only place for me to do that was to go to the United States.”
Ginzburg said a shortage of money and political freedom has stifled scientific growth in Russia, but said the country is changing that.
”Now, it’s free and it’s possible to travel and also quite possible to work in Russia,” he said. ”And I hope that Russia will enter the civilised world.”
The winners will receive their prizes on Wednesday from Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf in a lavish ceremony in Stockholm’s blue-hued concert hall.
The science and literature awards will be presented to the winners by Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896 in Stockholm.
South African JM Coetzee won the literature prize and was to deliver a traditional lecture to the Swedish Academy later on Sunday.
American Paul Lauterbur, and Briton Sir Peter Mansfield won the Nobel Prize in medicine.
Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize, which will be delivered Wednesday in Oslo, Norway. – Sapa-AP