YEAR IN REVIEW 2001: NOBEL-PRIZES

Prize for Chemistry It was once common knowledge that plastics-polymeric materials that can be molded or shaped-are fundamentally different from metals in their properties. Plastics, for example, are used around the copper wires in power cords because their insulating characteristics protect people from electric shocks and equipment from short circuits. In the 1970s the three scientists who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize for Chemistry turned that idea upside down. Alan G. MacDiarmid of the University of Pennsylvania, Hideki Shirakawa of the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and Alan J. Heeger of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), showed that certain plastics can be chemically modified to conduct electricity almost as readily as metals. The discovery of electrically conductive polymers provided insights into the nature of polymers and electrical conductivity and opened up new fields of chemical and physical research. The materials, which are light in weight and can be fabricated as films, found practical applications as well. By the end of the 20th century, conductive polymers were used in, or were being developed for, corrosion inhibitors, antistatic coatings on photographic film, "smart" windows that automatically darkened in strong sunlight to keep buildings cool, light-emitting diodes, flexible solar cells, displays for mobile telephones and other small electronic devices, and thin wall-sized, roll-up computer displays. MacDiarmid was born April 14, 1927, in Masterton, N.Z. He earned Ph.D.'s in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1953 and the University of Cambridge in 1955. He then joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, becoming full professor in 1964 and Blanchard Professor of Chemistry in 1988. Shirakawa was born Aug. 20, 1936, in Tokyo. He earned a Ph.D. from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1966. That same year he joined the faculty of the Institute of Materials Science at the University of Tsukuba, where he became professor of chemistry in 1982. Heeger was born Jan. 22, 1936, in Sioux City, Iowa. After receiving a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961, he taught and conducted research at the University of Pennsylvania until 1982, when he became professor at UCSB and director of its Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids. In 1990 Heeger founded the UNIAX Corp. to develop and manufacture light-emitting displays based on conducting polymers. Heeger, MacDiarmid, and Shirakawa carried out their prizewinning work while studying polyacetylene, a polymer that was known to exist as a black powder. In 1974, at the University of Tsukuba, Shirakawa and associates serendipitously synthesized polyacetylene in the form of a silvery film. Although the material had a distinct metallic appearance, it still behaved as an insulator. The following year Shirakawa discussed his discovery with MacDiarmid during the latter's visit to Japan. In 1977 the two men and Heeger, collaborating at the University of Pennsylvania, exposed polyacetylene to iodine vapour. Their strategy was to introduce impurities into the polymer much as in the doping process used to tailor the conductive properties of semiconductors. Doping with iodine increased polyacetylene's electrical conductivity by a factor of 10 million, which made it as conductive as some metals. Scientists later discovered other conductive polymers, including some that emit light when electrically stimulated, and established the key properties of the group. Polymers consist of molecules-acetylene molecules (HCCH) in the case of polyacetylene-linked together into long chains. To be conductive, a polymer must have so-called conjugated double bonds along its carbon-atom backbone. Conjugation means that the bonds between carbon atoms alternate, with one single bond followed by one double bond (-C=C-C=C-). In addition, the material must contain charge carriers in the form of extra electrons or of locations that lack an electron (called holes). The impurity atoms, or dopants, in the conductive polymer provide the electrons or holes. When an electric current is applied to the polymer, it can flow either by movement of the negatively charged electrons or by migration of the holes, which behave as positively charged particles. Scientists looked forward to the future application of conductive polymers in the emerging field of molecular electronics, where the materials could give rise to a new generation of plastic electronic devices. "In the future, we will be able to produce transistors and other electronic components consisting of individual molecules-which will dramatically increase the speed and reduce the size of our computers," stated the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the chemistry prize. "A computer corresponding to what we now carry around in our bags would suddenly fit inside a watch." Michael Woods Prize for Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded in 2000 to James J. Heckman and Daniel L. McFadden, two Americans who developed theories and methods that resolved some of the problems associated with the analysis of microdata. Their contributions to econometrics (the application of mathematical and statistical techniques to economic problems) and microeconomics (the interface between economics and statistics) provided essential tools for economists and other social scientists. Heckman received the Nobel award for his "development of theory and methods for analyzing selective samples." He found a solution to a major problem encountered in microeconomic studies; e.g., a sample-in which all members shared a common characteristic or attribute-might not represent the underlying population because of rules governing data collection. Selection problems can arise, for example, when a government study of the relationship between wages and working hours relies on observable data while ignoring other factors, including individual choice. Heckman, who had a reputation as the world's leading researcher on the microevaluation of labour-market programs, devised various methods to deal with such sample-selection problems. The best known of these was the Heckman correction (known as Heckit method or Heckman lamda), which consisted of a simple and easily applied two-stage method. In order to gauge the relationship between wages and working hours by using observable data, Heckman proposed that a model based on economic theory be formulated to establish the probability of working. The result generated by this model could then be used to predict the probability for each individual. This would be treated as an additional variable in stage two, when the probability was factored into the calculation. McFadden, working in a related area, received the Nobel award for his "development of theory and methods for analyzing discrete choice." Much of his work was done in the 1970s, and his seminal contribution to conditional logit analysis came in 1974. Previously, the value of microdata in empirical studies was often undermined because the data reflected a limited number of alternatives upon which individual choices were made in, for example, buying a house or selecting a mode of travel to work. In traditional demand analysis only a continuous (or measurable) variable could be used to represent individual choice, which made it inappropriate for studying discrete-choice behaviour. McFadden developed statistical methods that could easily be applied to the needs of society. His econometric discrete-choice analysis became an essential component in studying individual-choice behaviour. McFadden's models were applied to studies of labour-force participation, public transport systems, health care, housing (for the elderly in particular), and the environment and thereby enabled a greater understanding of the human choices that could influence the success or failure of public-policy decisions. Heckman was born April 19, 1944, in Chicago and was educated at Colorado College (B.A. 1965) and Princeton University (M.A. 1968, Ph.D. 197l). He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, where he was an associate professor (1973-77) and professor (from 1977) of economics. In 1989 he received an honorary M.A. from Yale University, where he served as professor of both economics (1988-90) and statistics (1990). He also acted as a research associate at the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (1971-85 and from 1987) and held associate editorships of the Journal of Econometrics (1977-83), the Journal of Labor Economics (from 1982), and The Review of Economics and Statistics (from 1994). Heckman was awarded the John Bates Clark medal by the American Economics Association in 1983. McFadden was born on July 29, 1937, in Raleigh, N.C., and was educated at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis (B.S. 1957, Ph.D. 1962). He taught economics (1963-79) at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became professor of economics in 1968. From 1978 he was on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also held (1984-91) the James R. Killian Chair and was director (1986-88) of the Statistics Center. In 1990 McFadden returned to Berkeley and held several prestigious positions, including the E. Morris Cox Chair. That same year he was also the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar while a visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. He was editor of the Journal of Statistical Physics (1968-70) and the Econometric Society monographs (1980-83) and was on the editorial boards of several academic journals. Janet H. Clark Prize for Literature Chinese migr writer Gao Xingjian was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature for "an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama." Gao, the first Chinese-language writer to win the award, was a respected novelist, playwright, translator, and critic whose works had been banned in his native country since the late 1980s. He was also renowned both as a stage director and as an artist. Subjected to persistent harassment from government authorities, Gao left China in 1987 and settled in France as a political refugee. He became a French citizen and took up residence in the Paris suburb of Bagnolet. Gao was born on Jan. 4, 1940, in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province. He was educated in state schools and from 1957 to 1962 attended the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, where he earned a degree in French. Persecuted as an intellectual during the repression of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Gao was forced to destroy his early writings and was later sent to a reeducation camp, enduring nearly six years of hard labour. Afterward, Gao was assigned by the government to work at the Foreign Languages Press. He then became a translator in the Chinese Writers Association, but he was unable to publish his work or travel abroad until 1979. Gao emerged in the early 1980s as an innovative and provocative voice in contemporary Chinese literature. He first gained critical recognition with the publication in 1980 of the novella Hanye zhong de xingchen ("Stars on a Cold Night"). This was followed by the controversial literary study Xiandai xiaoshuo jiqiao chutan (1981; "A Preliminary Discussion of the Art of Modern Fiction"). In 1981 Gao became a resident playwright with the Beijing People's Art Theater, and in 1982 he saw the premiere of his first play, Juedui xinhao (Alarm Signal, 1996), written in collaboration with Liu Huiyuan and published in Gao Xingjian xiju ji (1985; "Collected Dramatic Works of Gao Xingjian"). Merging elements of traditional Chinese opera and drama with the influence of Western modernism, Gao created a body of work that earned praise and acclaim as well as disapproval and censure. His second and most celebrated play, Chezhan (1983; The Bus Stop, 1996, also translated as Bus Stop, 1998), incorporated various techniques of avant-garde European theatre. It premiered in June 1983 and was openly condemned as "intellectual pollution" by Communist Party officials. Gao continued to explore the boundaries of experimental drama with plays such as Yeren (1985; Wild Man, 1990), Dubai (1985; "Soliloquy"), and most notably Bi'an (1986; The Other Side, 1997, also translated as The Other Shore, 1999). Deemed counterrevolutionary by authorities, the play was stopped after 10 performances, and Gao was placed under surveillance. In part to avoid further reprisal, Gao embarked on a 10-month walking tour of the forest and mountain regions of Sichuan province, following the course of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River). For Gao the journey was both a spiritual and an artistic pilgrimage that became the basis for his first novel, Lingshan (1989; Soul Mountain, 2000), a masterful tour de force. He later produced another novel, Yige ren de shengjing (1999; to be published in 2001 as One Man's Bible). Gao, who wrote in both French and Chinese, was the recipient in 1992 of the title of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture. Following the publication of his play Taowang (1989; Fugitives, 1993), set against the backdrop of the brutal suppression in 1989 of student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, Gao was declared persona non grata by the Chinese regime, and his works were banned. Other plays included Sheng si jie (1991; Between Life and Death), Duihua yu fanjie (1992; Dialogue and Rebuttal), Yeyou shen (1993; Nocturnal Wanderer), and Zhoumo sichongzou (1995; Weekend Quartet), translated by Gilbert C.F. Fung and collected in The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian (1999). As cited by the Swedish Academy, "In the writing of Gao Xingjian literature is born anew from the struggle of the individual to survive the history of the masses. He is a perspicacious skeptic who makes no claim to be able to explain the world." In search of meaning through personal expression, Gao asserted that only as a writer and as an artist had he found reaffirmation of his own existence. Steven R. Serafin Prize for Peace The 2000 Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to South Korean Pres. Kim Dae Jung, who had spent much of his life in a struggle to transform his homeland. In making the announcement, the Norwegian Nobel Committee cited his contributions to "democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular." For decades Kim had fought for a more democratic government in South Korea, and he made improved relations with the North a principal goal of his administration. As president he instituted a "sunshine" policy that allowed South Koreans to visit relatives in the North, and he also eased the rules on investment by South Koreans there. In 1998 direct talks between the two countries resumed for the first time in four years, and in June 2000 Kim accepted an invitation to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, to meet his counterpart, Kim Jong Il. It was the first meeting between the leaders of the two countries, still technically at war, since the Korean War of 1950-53. Kim was born on Dec. 3, 1925, in Mokp'o, S.Kor. He graduated from the Mokp'o School of Commerce in 1943 and then worked for a Japanese-owned company and also briefly published a newspaper. He was captured by communist forces in the Korean War but escaped. An advocate of a Western-style pluralistic democracy, he opposed the one-party rule of Pres. Syngman Rhee during the 1950s. In 1961 he won the first of six terms in the National Assembly, and during the decade he became an outspoken critic of the harsh regime of Pres. Park Chung Hee. In 1970 Kim became head of the Korean Democratic Party, and in 1971 he ran unsuccessfully against Park in the presidential election. The Korean Central Intelligence Agency abducted him from a hotel in Tokyo in 1973, and he was spared death only through pressure from Japan and the U.S. He spent much of the following decade under arrest and in prison, at times under sentence of death, until in 1982 he was allowed to go in exile to the U.S. for medical treatment. Kim returned to South Korea in 1985 and ran again for president in 1987 and 1992. In 1995 he founded the National Congress for New Politics, and in 1997 he won election as president of South Korea, the first opposition candidate ever to do so. Kim, a devout Roman Catholic, had spent half a century as a dissident in South Korea, supporting democratic values and improved relations with the North even when his views put him in mortal danger. For his patience and persistence and for his lack of recrimination against those at whose hands he had suffered, he was sometimes compared to South African apartheid foe Nelson Mandela. The change in relationship toward the North, for which Kim had often been ridiculed, seemed to bear fruit. Following his meeting with Kim Jong Il, head of what was sometimes called the world's last Stalinist state, the two countries marched together in the ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, arranged further visits between separated families, and agreed to restore severed rail links. Further, in October U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright made a trip to Pyongyang. Thus, Kim's policy appeared to be defusing one of the tensest and most dangerous situations in the world. Robert Rauch Prize for Physics Three scientists whose pioneering work laid the foundations for the modern era of silicon microchips, computers, and information technology won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Physics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded half of the prize jointly to Herbert Kroemer of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and Zhores Alferov (Zhores Ivanovich Alfyorov) of the A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, St. Petersburg. The other half went to Jack S. Kilby of Texas Instruments Inc., Dallas, Texas. "Two simple but fundamental requirements are put on a modern information system," stated the Swedish Academy in its award announcement. "It must be fast, so that large volumes of information can be transferred in a short time. The user's apparatus must be small so that there is room for it in offices, homes, briefcases or pockets." Kroemer, Alferov, and Kilby invented the technology to meet those requirements, the Academy asserted. Kroemer was born Aug. 25, 1928, in Weimar, Ger., and received a Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1952 from Georg August University of Gttingen, Ger. His early employment included stints at RCA Laboratories, Princeton, N.J. (1954-57), and Varian Associates, Palo Alto, Calif. (1959-66), where he did much of his prizewinning work. In 1968 Kroemer became professor of electrical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and he moved to UCSB in 1976. Alferov was born March 15, 1930, in Vitebsk in the Soviet republic of Belorussia (now Belarus). He received a doctorate in physics and mathematics in 1970 from the A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, with which he had been associated since 1953. Alferov became director of the institute in 1987. Kroemer and Alferov were cited for their work in the 1950s and '60s to develop fast optoelectronic and microelectronic components made from semiconductor heterostructures. Most computer chips and other semiconductor components are made from one kind of material, such as silicon, that has been chemically modified, or doped, to change its electronic characteristics. As the term suggests, heterostructure semiconductors are made of layers of different materials, such as gallium arsenide and aluminum gallium arsenide. In 1957, while working at RCA, Kroemer carried out theoretical calculations showing that a heterostructure transistor would be superior to a conventional transistor, especially for certain high-frequency uses and other applications. Scientists later showed that he was correct-heterostructure transistors can operate at frequencies 100 times higher than the best conventional transistors, and they also work better as amplifiers. Alferov's research team in the Soviet Union applied Kroemer's theory, developing the first practical heterostructure electronic device in 1966 and then pioneering electronic components made from heterostructures. One of them was the first heterostructure laser, which both Kroemer and Alferov had proposed independently in 1963. This invention led to a technological breakthrough by the end of the decade-heterostructure solid-state lasers that could operate continuously at room temperature. These lasers made fibre-optic communication possible. The Nobel citation emphasized the many uses of heterostructure devices in everyday life. Laser diodes in compact disc audio and video players and CD-ROM computer drives, for instance, relied on semiconductor heterostructures. Heterostructure devices also were used in communications satellites, cellular telephone communications, bar code readers, and light-emitting diodes used in auto brake lights, control-panel indicators, and other products. Kilby was born Nov. 8, 1923, in Jefferson City, Mo. In 1950, while working as a circuit designer, he earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In 1958 he joined Texas Instruments, where he remained until 1970, when he took a leave of absence to pursue independent research. From 1978 to 1984 he was distinguished professor of electrical engineering at Texas A&M University at College Station. Kilby received his half of the physics prize for his role in inventing the integrated circuit, or microchip. A microchip is a tiny sliver of semiconductor, typically silicon, that contains thousands or millions of microscopic transistors, resistors, and other electronic components. All are designed to work in an integrated fashion as amplifiers, computer processors and memories, and other components that underpin the microelectronics revolution. When Kilby began his prizewinning work, the conventional transistor already was the limiting factor in computer advances. Transistors, invented in 1947, were in many ways superior to vacuum tubes, but thousands had to be soldered together with resistors, capacitors, and other discrete components on printed circuit boards. By the early 1950s scientists were discussing a solution to this complexity-manufacturing all the circuit components as a single package. As a new employee at Texas Instruments in 1958, Kilby had earned no vacation and spent the summer working almost alone in the laboratory. During that period he demonstrated that it was possible to fabricate all the different components of a circuit from silicon. The next year Kilby filed a patent AU: Per TI, patent was issued in Kilby's name and assigned to TI; one source (PBS) says TI filed patent. Please advise.for his idea of miniaturized electronic circuits. As the Swedish Academy pointed out, another young engineer, Robert Noyce, then of Fairchild Semiconductor Corp., also had demonstrated the practical possibility of an integrated circuit at about the same time. Kilby, however, was first with a patent application. Kilby later coinvented the pocket calculator, the first common use of an integrated circuit. Michael Woods Prize for Physiology or Medicine The 2000 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Arvid Carlsson of Gteborg (Swed.) University, Paul Greengard of Rockefeller University, New York City, and Eric Kandel of Columbia University, New York City. Their seminal investigations clarified the way in which brain cells transmit signals to each other both in healthy people and in individuals with common neurological and mental illnesses. As was noted by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, which awarded the medicine prizes, these findings resulted in the development of new drugs for Parkinson disease and other disorders. Carlsson was born Jan. 25, 1923, in Uppsala, Swed. He received his medical degree in 1951 from the University of Lund, Swed., where he subsequently held teaching positions. In 1959 he became professor of pharmacology at Gteborg University. Greengard, born Dec. 11, 1925, in New York City, received a Ph.D. in 1953 from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Following postgraduate work, he was employed with Geigy Research Laboratories, Ardsley, N.Y. (1959-67), and held professorships at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City (1961-70), and Yale University (1968-83). In 1983 he became professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller University. Kandel, born Nov. 7, 1929, in Vienna, received his medical degree in 1956 from New York University's School of Medicine. Following residency in psychiatry and employment at Harvard University, he served as associate professor at New York University (1965-74). Beginning in 1974 Kandel held a series of professorships at Columbia University, where he also directed its Center for Neurobiology and Behavior until 1983. In the human brain more than 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, exchange chemical signals at synapses-points where two cells make contact-in a process called synaptic transmission. Neurons transmit their signals via chemical compounds, neurotransmitters, that travel across the synapse. The neurotransmitter delivers the signal by contacting receptor sites on the surface of the receiving cell. The receiving cell then must change the exterior signal into an internal message to which it can respond. The process of converting exterior signals into internal action is termed signal transduction. In the late 1950s Carlsson carried out pioneering studies establishing that the molecule dopamine is an important neurotransmitter in the brain. Scientists previously had thought that dopamine worked only indirectly, by causing brain cells to make another neurotransmitter, noradrenaline. Using a sensitive test for dopamine that he devised, Carlsson detected particularly high levels of the compound in areas of the brain that controlled walking and other voluntary movements. In animal experiments he showed that depletion of dopamine impairs the ability to move. When Carlsson treated dopamine-depleted animals with l-dopa, which the brain uses to make dopamine, the symptoms disappeared, and the animals moved normally again. Carlsson and others recognized that the animal symptoms were similar to those in Parkinson disease patients. As a result, l-dopa was employed as a treatment for Parkinson disease, eventually becoming the single most important medication for the disease. Carlsson's work also contributed to an understanding of the relationship between neurotransmitters and mental states such as clinical depression, which led to the introduction of new antidepressant drugs, including Prozac. The Nobel Assembly honoured Greengard for having discovered how dopamine and other neurotransmitters work in the nervous system. When he began his prizewinning work in the late 1960s, scientists recognized dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin as key neurotransmitters in a signaling process called slow synaptic transmission. Greengard showed that slow synaptic transmission involves a chemical reaction called protein phosphorylation. In that reaction a phosphate molecule is linked to a protein, changing the protein's function. Greengard worked out the signal-transduction pathway that begins with dopamine. When dopamine attaches to receptors in a neuron's outer membrane, it causes a rise in a second messenger, cyclic AMP. This molecule, in turn, activates an enzyme that adds phosphate molecules to other proteins in the neuron. Protein phosphorylation can affect the neuron in different ways, including its sensitivity to being triggered to fire off nerve signals. Kandel's award-winning research revealed the role of synaptic transmission in learning and memory. He used a simple experimental model, the sea slug Aplysia, which has only about 20,000 nerve cells, many of them very large and easy to study. The sea slug also has a protective reflex to guard its gills, which Kandel used to study basic learning mechanisms. The sea-slug experiments-combined with later research in mice-established that, in the words of the Nobel Assembly, "our memory can be said to be 'located in the synapses' and changes in synaptic function are central, when different types of memories are formed." Kandel showed that weak stimuli give rise to certain chemical changes in synapses; these changes are the basis for short-term memory, which lasts minutes to hours. Stronger stimuli cause different synaptic changes, which result in a form of long-term memory that can remain for weeks. Michael Woods