Fundamental sciences and patience a virtue

The three Nobel Prizes for natural sciences — physics, chemistry, medicine or biology — were announced from Oct 2 to 4.

The Nobel Prize for physics went to three scientists "for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter", while the prizes for chemistry and biology went to scientists who laid the basis for nanometer technology and mRNA vaccines. The Nobel Prize for 2023 thus continues to encourage research in fundamental sciences, namely those that achieve breakthroughs in basic theories and lay the foundation for practical technologies.

This is something worth cherishing. Breakthroughs in fundamental sciences do not result in immediate profits, but they revolutionize the way we see things. For example, Alexei I. Ekimov, who shares the Nobel Prize for chemistry with two others this year, has found that glasses of different particle size absorb different lights, which is a kind of quantum effect related to size.

It was on the basis of this discovery of quantum dots, by Louis E. Brus in 1983, that nanometer materials could be developed. Moungi G. Bawendi produced nanometer crystals of certain sizes in 1993 for which he too shares the Nobel Prize for chemistry this year.

They have all contributed to the manufacture of nanometer materials on a large scale, the basis for developing flexible electronics, micro sensors and thinner solar panels.

For any country's technological progress, it is necessary to be up to date with fundamental sciences. That in turn requires systemic arrangements that favor fundamental research. Studying the basic theories might not bring immediate profits, because of which the basics are often underrated. It is time to make amends.

It often takes decades before the achievements in fundamental science can be applied elsewhere. The quantum dots were discovered in the 1980s but nanometer materials were not produced on a mass scale until this century. Patience is much needed before the true value of research in fundamental sciences is realized.