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Business AsiaOctober 13 - October 19
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Two professors and their Nobel Prize
For the first time in history, Japanese researchers have shared a Nobel Prize, notes The Daily Yomiuri. Makoto Kobayashi, 64, and Toshihide Masukawa, 68, were awarded the prize for physics for their research on quarks conducted over two decades ago, along with US citizen Yoichiro Nambu.
The eureka moment came for Masukawa in 1972 as he mulled the four-quark-type theory he had constructed with Kobayashi while sitting in the bath, says Agence France-Presse, quoting Jiji Press. "I broke the spell when I stood up from the water," he said at the time. The two were "researching partners of differing styles," meaning polar opposites, who worked together after attending Nagoya University at the same time.
Masukawa won't being going to Stockholm to collect the prize, however, since he doesn't have a passport, his wife Akiko told AFP. He doesn't travel overseas and feels "quite allergic to trying to speak English." The bespectacled scientist tried to conceal his shyness when the prize was announced, "at one point sobbing and at another moment forcing such a grin that he stuck out his tongue." He also claimed that he was "not so excited" with the win, telling public broadcaster NHK he would continue his present research. "I'm thinking of working to advance Einstein's famous theory of general relativity." For his partner, winning the prize is "a wonderful thing but I'm at a loss. I felt like I was pulled back to my past work," Kobayashi told NHK.
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Raise deposit insurance ceilings
The recent run on Bank of East Asia highlights how Hong Kong's financial authorities "have done nothing to bolster depositor protection," says Tom Holland in the South China Morning Post. Global banks are starting to "topple like ninepins," and foreign governments are "racing to increase the ceiling on" deposits covered by national insurance.
Read ArticleOn the money
It's a "lighthearted guide to exchange rates" that serves as a kind of "fair-value yardstick" for a currency's true value, says The Economist of its Big Mac Index, which tracks purchasing-power parity - in this case, the idea that exchange rates should fluctuate to make the US dollar price of McDonald's iconic hamburger the same in every country. Just a "handful of currencies" are near their PPP. Many Western currencies, such as the euro, are overvalued, but the Japanese yen is a "snip" at 27 percent below its actual value.
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