Thirty Years Between Discovery and Award... Why Does the Nobel Prize Take Decades? [Capturing 125 Years of Nobel Era] ③

The Weight of Discovery, Proven Over Time

Natural Science Nobel Prizes in the 2010s Took an Average of 29 Years

L'Huillier's 1987 Discovery Was Awarded the Nobel Prize After 36 Years

Editor's Note125 years have passed since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901. Science has moved from an era of lone genius discoveries to one where thousands of researchers and artificial intelligence (AI) collaborate. The Asia Business Daily presents a seven-part series exploring how the agents and methods of scientific discovery have changed over the 125 years of the Nobel Prize, and to what extent the Nobel Prize reflects these changes.

Professor Anne L'Huillier of Lund University in Sweden, the 2023 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, is examining laser experimental equipment in her laboratory. In 1987, L'Huillier observed high-order harmonic generation in an experiment where a strong laser passed through a gas. This research later became the foundation of science for observing electron movement at the attosecond scale (one ten-quadrillionth of a second). She received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023, 36 years after the first observation. Provided by Jenny Leyman/Lund University

In a French laboratory in 1987, physicist Anne L'Huillier observed an unexpected phenomenon while irradiating an inert gas with a powerful infrared laser. As the laser interacted with the gas, a chain reaction of light at frequencies much higher than the incident light was generated—a process known as 'high-order harmonic generation.'

At the time, no one could have predicted that this phenomenon would one day open up a new field known as 'attosecond physics.' L'Huillier also recalled in an interview with the Nobel Foundation that, although she sensed the results were intriguing, she could not have imagined the extent of their impact.

Subsequent research revealed that high-order harmonics could be used to generate extremely short light pulses, and in 2001, research teams led by Pierre Agostini and Ferenc Krausz succeeded in generating light pulses on the attosecond scale. One attosecond is one hundred quintillionth of a second, and this achievement paved the way to track electron movements within atoms and molecules, which had previously been nearly impossible to observe.

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to L'Huillier, Agostini, and Krausz—36 years after L'Huillier’s initial discovery of high-order harmonics.

A Discovery Is Not Complete at Birth

The gap between discovery and Nobel Prize recognition has continued to widen. According to an analysis by the international journal Nature, the average interval between a Nobel laureate's major scientific achievement and the awarding year increased from 14 years before 1960 to 29 years on average in the 2010s—more than doubling. For example, Donna Strickland, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, was honored 33 years after developing chirped pulse amplification (CPA) technology in 1985.

Jin-Ho Jung, president of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, analyzed, "The full significance of a discovery is not always evident at the moment it is made. Only as time passes, with subsequent research accumulating and perspectives broadening, can we truly determine how far that discovery has expanded the horizons of human knowledge."

The Time Science Takes to Filter Its Own Errors: ‘Verification’

Another core reason for these decades-long time lags is the process of 'verification.'

Up until the early 1980s, gastritis and gastric ulcers were primarily attributed to stress or excessive gastric acid. Robin Warren in Australia observed bacteria in the stomach lining, and, together with Barry Marshall, succeeded in 1982 in culturing what would later be referred to as Helicobacter pylori. However, they still had to overcome skepticism within the academic community. In 1984, Marshall even went as far as ingesting the bacteria himself in a self-experiment, and after accumulating years of evidence, the two received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005—23 years after their first successful culture.

Jinhee Yoon, president of the Korean Physical Society, emphasized, "Only after a discovery is repeatedly reproduced and verified through experiments is it accepted as scientific consensus. Even findings made using state-of-the-art technology, such as AI, cannot skip the verification process to confirm their validity."

Just as initial claims may turn out to be wrong, or conversely, as exceptional observations become monumental truths through verification, the time it takes to win a Nobel Prize can be seen as a period of self-correction within the scientific community, filtering out erroneous conclusions.

Barry Marshall (left) and Robin Warren, Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine in 2005. Through collaborative research at the Royal Perth Hospital in Australia, the two discovered that Helicobacter pylori causes gastritis and peptic ulcers. The discovery, which began in 1982, was later confirmed through various studies, and the two jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 23 years later, in 2005. Photo by The Nobel Prize

'Slow Nobel Prizes': The Message for Korean Science

Of course, such 'delays' come with drawbacks. Since the Nobel Committee only awards living recipients, longer time lags can result in pivotal contributors never having their achievements recognized during their lifetime.

Nevertheless, the ‘slowness’ of the Nobel Prize serves as a stern reminder that a single paper cannot immediately become a great discovery. Only when an achievement withstands scrutiny, spawns subsequent research, and gives rise to new industries and academic fields is its true value verified.

President Jung stressed that this provides important insight for the Korean scientific community. He advised that, even if immediate results are not visible, there must be an environment that supports and stays committed to long-term basic and high-risk, high-challenge research.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.