How did Japan get so many Nobel Prizes?
Upvote:2
When I was young (in 1960-80) there was a notion of "(industrially) developed country" and "developing country" (a. k. a. the 3-d world). Japan was the only country in the whole Asia which qualified as "developed". Perhaps this division is out of date. But when you count the number of Nobel prizes you surely count from the beginning, and they are awarded roughly from the beginning of 20-th century. Another consideration is a time lag between the time when the country becomes "developed" and the time when Nobel prizes are awarded to its citizens. (I do not even mention the time lag between a particular discovery and its recognition, which can be long).
In think this explains the phenomenon that you notice. "Developed country" means good education system and a lot of jobs for educated people, and their high status in the society. Also information infrastructure and other things which help first-class research.
Japan developed extremely fast: less than one generation passed between the "Meiji revolution" and introduction of science on the highest level. In this respect it is unique. But the discussion of why the Meiji revolution happened, and why it was so successful will lead us too far. You may start with Wikipedia "Meiji revolution". This revolution transformed Japan from the "3-d world status" to a competitor of Western Europe in less than one generation. Competitor in everything: economy, military might, and science.
More post
- 📝 How many Jews lived in Rome in the period immediately before (and during) the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE)?
- 📝 How did Israel win the Six-Day War?
- 📝 What happened in Calcutta in 1961?
- 📝 What's this flag flying on a fort at Kodiak, Alaska?
- 📝 What was the hippie movement? Why did it decline?
- 📝 Is there a special name for the beginning of the 20th century?
- 📝 Why did Abraham Lincoln decline the governorship of Oregon Territory in 1849?
- 📝 Did gun control in Turkey in 1911 lead to the Armenian Genocide?
- 📝 When did cavalry soldiers unsheathe swords?
- 📝 Why didn’t Christianity spread southwards from Ethiopia in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Why and how were east Brandenburg, Pomerania and Silesia taken away from Germany after WW2?
- 📝 Has being a single mother been always stigmatized?
- 📝 What police department served the Kenwood neighborhood in Chicago in 1907?
- 📝 Southern Manifesto main idea
- 📝 Why was the Budjak annexed to Ukraine in 1940?
- 📝 What was the original cost of a Sharps Rifle?
- 📝 When did Russia last have some land that is not inside its current borders?
- 📝 What uniform does PewDiePie wear in this picture?
- 📝 How many times did Germany try to negotiate a peace in WW2?
- 📝 Who is this young 'Prince'?
- 📝 Why did Europeans call Native Americans Indians in the 18th Century AD, After they had found out they were in the wrong continent?
- 📝 What does MLK mean by "lonely island" and "vast ocean"?
- 📝 At the end of WW2, multiple German leaders either committed suicide or made preparations to do so -- was this unprecedented?
- 📝 First execution by firing squad
- 📝 Why was Oslo I Accord so harsh or controversial?
- 📝 Was WW1 generally foreseen?
- 📝 Was the London Blitz accidentally started by lost pilots?
- 📝 Aryanization in Nazi Germany. What did it mean in reality?
- 📝 What percent of the Roman Republic's population were citizens in various centuries?
- 📝 Why did Odoacer choose to be king Instead of emperor?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How did Japan get so many Nobel Prizes?
- 📝 How did Italy and Germany get rubber in WWII?
- 📝 How did Genghis Khan's army feed so many horses?
- 📝 Did Aztecs know how many continents there are on earth?
- 📝 Why did the USA invade Okinawa instead of one of the many other islands in southern Japan
- 📝 How many times did the the sacred fire of Vesta die?
- 📝 How much did J. Robert Oppenheimer get paid while overseeing the Manhattan Project?
- 📝 How did Alexander III of Macedon get the title "the Great"?
- 📝 How long did it take to get news of the sighting of the Spanish Armada from Land’s End to London?
- 📝 Where did Japan get their oil during WWII?
- 📝 How did Hitler get off so lightly after the Beer Hall Putsch?
- 📝 How did the Germans get housing again after WWII?
- 📝 How and why did Charles XII get to Poltava?
- 📝 How Did the Mongol Empire Get So Big?
- 📝 How did the "Standard Model" physics theory get that name?
- 📝 How long did it take mail to get between Madrid and Mexico?
- 📝 How many hours per day did a Sumerian farmer sleep?
- 📝 Before modern banking, how did government-issued coins get into everyone's hands?
- 📝 During the U.S. Prohibition, how did they get away with drinking alcohol?
- 📝 How many trucks did Russia and Germany have at the start of Barbarossa?
- 📝 How did the Czech Legion get home?
- 📝 How did the Medici originally get into finance?
- 📝 How many Russian people did Tsar Ivan IV ("the Terrible") kill?
- 📝 How many non-jews did Nazis kill?
- 📝 Roman Taxes: how did taxes collected in the provinces get to Rome?
- 📝 How did the "Forty Niners" get to California in 1849?
- 📝 How did schoolgirls dress in Japan in the 1930s/40s?
- 📝 How many soldiers did Ghengis Khan field?
- 📝 How many hours a week did the Tolpuddle Martyrs work?
- 📝 How many languages did Leibniz speak?