Chapter 442 Troubles of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

If the problem of controllable nuclear fusion can really be solved, a research institute is really nothing, and even a little more exaggerated treatment can be considered.

After all, Huaguo is a country that is good at flexibility, and the introduction of international cutting-edge talents will always be one of the key points of talent work.

Regardless of the reaction of domestic academic circles.

As October gets closer, it's not just the physics community that suffers from the name Lu Zhou. The Nobel Prize Committee in Chemistry, far away in Stockholm, is also troubled by the name.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is located in a quiet corner of the research institute building.

Olof Ramström, who just finished an internal meeting of the Nobel Prize Committee in Chemistry, is sitting at his desk, looking at the paper in his hand.

"Physics? The scope of your research is really wide." Looking at the papers in the hands of his colleagues, Professor Peter Brzezinski, who also just attended the meeting, raised his eyebrows and said with interest.

"I'm not studying physics, but this paper seems to have caused quite a stir in the physics world recently. I heard several professors discussing it, so I asked an acquaintance I know to help me get a copy and come over to have a look."

For the mathematical formulas listed in the paper, Olof must not be able to understand, after all, the major is not correct.

But this does not prevent him from combining the "Physical Review Letters" at hand, referring to the comments of professionals, to understand what is so good about this paper, or which problem it has solved that has plagued the physics community for many years.

Peter stared at the paper for a while, then asked in an uncertain voice, "Lu Zhou?"

"That's right, it's this troublesome guy." After a pause, Olof continued in a joking tone, "Maybe we will see him in the nominations for the Nobel Prize in Physics next year."

Olof Ramstrom is a professor of mechanical chemistry at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jury.

Standing next to him is Peter Brzezinski, a master in the field of biochemistry from Stockholm University, an academician of the Royal Academy of Sciences and a member of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry judging committee.

In the past month, the name Lu Zhou has almost contracted more than half of the disputes of the Nobel Committee, so that they held several meetings but failed to reach a consensus on the issue of this name.

What is more interesting is that the focus of those debates is not around the results of the selection itself. After all, whether it is the "shuttle effect" of lithium-sulfur batteries or the problem of lithium anode dendrites, they are quite high-level research results.

And, it's not just the field of application.

Just last year, his "Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure" caused quite a stir in the fields of computational chemistry, surface chemistry and even condensed matter physics, and won the Hoffman Medal.

However, after all, the Nobel Prize is not an ordinary honor, and what needs to be considered is not just a certain aspect or a certain field.

It is true that he has made excellent results, but there are not a few equally outstanding results that are still in the queue.

Many people were not even selected after decades of queuing, and some were even selected from their prime of life until they were about to enter the soil...

Opinions within the Nobel Chemistry Prize jury are very divided. Some people think that he and his research results are too young, but some people think that being young is not a reason to ignore the importance of the results.

For example, Professor Orlof is one of the supporters of the latter point of view.

In his opinion, the modified PDMS material and HCS-1 may still need to be considered. After all, although these two achievements have broad prospects for industrialization, they are not yet outstanding in terms of contributions to the field of chemistry. However, the theoretical model of the electrochemical interface structure, in his opinion, has undoubtedly reached an outstanding level.

In the past year, many scholars have made valuable achievements around the theoretical model he established.

It is no exaggeration to say that the theoretical model he established has redefined the subject of surface chemistry and opened up new research ideas for computational chemistry.

"The chemistry award in 2017 has already been awarded to cryo-electron microscopy, and the 15-year award-winning research on the mechanism of DNA repair is even something that Karolinska Institutet should consider. Seriously, if we don't consider chemistry in the true sense As a result, our Nobel Chemistry Prize Review Committee can simply be renamed the Biology Prize Review Committee.”

Hearing this sentence, Professor Peter, who is engaged in the research of biochemistry, coughed slightly in embarrassment.

"Don't be like this my friend, biochemistry is also a part of chemistry...and cryo-electron microscopy is not completely regarded as an achievement in the field of biology. In fact, it can also be regarded as a research on methodology in analytical chemistry?"

Olof shook his head, "This kind of word play doesn't make any sense. We all know whether it changes biology or chemistry."

Someone made a very interesting statistic. Among the five second-level disciplines of chemistry, polymers and biochemistry received the most Nobel Prizes, accounting for one-third of the total. Among them, biochemistry won 26 times. Award, and 6 times to structural biology.

In contrast, organic synthesis methodology, which is really awarded to chemists, has only won 12 awards, and it is even worse for inorganic chemistry...

If DNA is regarded as a macromolecule, then there is indeed nothing wrong with the choice of the Nobel Prize Committee, and it can be logically justified.

However, everyone knows that this is unfair to chemists.

After all, in addition to the Chemistry Prize, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is where biologists should go.

Now that cryo-electron microscopy has won awards, it is impossible to say that chemists have no opinion at all.

Glancing at his old friend, Peter sighed softly.

"I can understand your feelings. His work in the field of surface chemistry is indeed outstanding enough. Although I didn't watch the report in Berlin on the spot, I communicated with many professors of the Max Planck Society afterwards, and their opinions have nothing to do with it. One exception is very high ... but I must say that this achievement is very young."

Orlof asked rhetorically: "What does it matter? When we award the 'Design and Synthesis of Molecular Machines', do we think differently about the possible future contributions of this technology?"

"So there was indeed controversy in that awards ceremony, and it was beyond the expectations of many people. But what we want to say is actually not the point. The crux of the problem is that he is too young," Professor Peter shook his head, "The 24-year-old nominee …if the Nobel Prize were awarded to him, he would undoubtedly be the youngest recipient.”

Prior to this, the youngest Nobel laureate was 25-year-old Lawrence Bragg.

Although Nobel's will does not stipulate how old the winners must be, not everyone is happy to break the rules and set a new record in history.

Unless, he is really good.

However, this kind of subjective problem is quite difficult to judge, unless the Nobel Prize committee happens to have a scholar in the direction of surface chemistry, who can better describe the work he has done from an objective perspective...

Unfortunately, among these committee members, there are no scholars who study surface chemistry.

In fact, Olof himself was also hesitant, whether what he insisted on was right or not.

But he just thinks that this year's Nobel Prize should consider work in the field of pure chemistry.

Or in other words, they should award the prize for theoretical models of electrochemical interface structures.

After all, in the 21st century, it is really difficult to make such important achievements in the field of theoretical chemistry...