(Note: I use AI to help me translate my stories from Japanese to English.)
In 2016, I attended a public conversation in Nagoya, Japan, between Shinya Yamanaka and Isamu Akasaki, both Nobel Prize laureates.
Shinya Yamanaka is an entertaining speaker, and I laughed a lot during his talk. He said that it is important to find something you love to do. It may take time, but you will eventually find it.
Yamanaka also said that people should not rely too much on textbooks or teachers when trying to make discoveries. He joked that he often gives incorrect information, so people shouldn’t believe everything he says.
Yamanaka’s favorite saying is, “Inscrutable are the ways of heaven,” which means that we cannot always understand what is good or bad in our lives.
At first, Yamanaka wanted to become a doctor, so he went to medical school. However, he was not good at performing surgical operations and was often scolded.
He eventually gave up on becoming a doctor and decided to become a researcher. In the end, he won the Nobel Prize for discovering that mature cells can be converted into stem cells.
What seemed like a failure — giving up on becoming a doctor — turned out to be a good thing for Yamanaka. We often don’t understand what is truly good or bad in the long run.
Isamu Akasaki’s favorite saying is “Experience is the best teacher.” I had never heard this saying before, so it made a strong impression on me.
People often think they can learn by reading books, but experience is more important than book knowledge.
Both of them emphasized that optimism, curiosity, persistence, and teamwork are essential for research.
They discovered truths about nature that no one had studied before, so they couldn’t rely on books.
They seemed like adventurers.